UPFINA

The jobless claims report from the week of September 12th was important for a few reasons. Firstly, it was the BLS survey week for the September report. Secondly, non-seasonally adjusted claims were up 2 straight weeks, so the trend needed…

The Fed did exactly what most expected on Wednesday as it didn’t hike rates and called for no hikes through 2023 based on the median FOMC member’s estimate seen in the dot plot below. We think some commentators are extrapolating…

Redbook same store sales growth fell for the 2nd straight week in the week of September 12th. As you can see from the chart below, it fell from -0.1% to -1.2%. This might not be a blip lower. The good…

On Wednesday, the Fed will give us its decision on rates along with an updated look at its economic projections. It will be interesting to see where the Fed sees the unemployment rate going since it has fallen quickly, but…

Inflation is still very low. CPI in August was 1.3% which was up from 1%. Core CPI was up from 1.6% to 1.7% which put it slightly closer to the Fed’s 2% target as you can see from the chart…

The jobless claims report from the week of September 5th was a mixed bag. There are a few twists with this data update which must be noted or you’ll be misled by the headlines. Seasonally adjusted claims stayed the same…

The latest Redbook same store sales growth reading was bad as it fell from 4.6% to -0.1% in the week of September 5th. It’s always hard to figure out if one week of bad data means the trend is changing….

In August, the small business optimism index increased from 98.8 to 100.2 which beat estimates for 98.9. It’s no surprise small business confidence crept up. What is a surprise is how relatively optimistic small firms are in relation to last…

We are getting more details on how the consumer was impacted by the decline in unemployment benefits via non-traditional data points. Normally, waiting until the retail sales report comes out isn’t an issue, but conditions have changed rapidly this year….

The August BLS labor report bested the ADP report by a lot just like it has since the recovery started. As you can see from the chart below, there were 1.371 million jobs added which was less than last month…