October employment and September monthly GDP, for a set of variables tracked by the NBER’s BCDC:
Figure 1: Nonfarm Payroll (NFP) activity from CES (blue), mean NFP from the first benchmark (blue), employment (orange), industrial production (red), personal income excluding current transfers in -Ch.2017$ (bright green), production sales and trade in Ch.2017$ (black), consumption in Ch.2017$ (blue), and and monthly GDP in Ch.2017$ (pink), GDP (green bars), all log normalized to 2021M11=0. Source: BLS via FRED, Federal Reserve, BEA 2024Q3 1st release, S&P Global Market Insights (with Macroeconomic Advisers, IHS Markit) (11/1/2024), and author’s calculations.
Other available indicators tend to be higher, including the accident index for September, and vehicle miles traveled (VMT) in August.
Figure 2: Preliminary Nonfarm Payroll (NFP) benchmark (dark blue), employment adjusted using CBO immigration estimates through 2024 (orange), manufacturing output (red), personal income excluding current transfers by Ch.2017$ (light green), retail sales in 1999M12$ (dark), vehicle miles traveled (VMT) (chartreuse), and coincident index (pink), GDO (blue bars), all logs normalized to 2021M11=0. The early benchmark is the official NFP which is adjusted by the ratio of total states to CES total states. Source: Philadelphia Fed, Federal Reserve via FRED, BEA 2024Q2 third release / annual update, and the author’s calculations.
High frequency (weekly) indicators are mixed, Lewis-Mertens-Stock WEI at 2.1%, and Baumeister-Leiva-Leon-Sims WECI at 1.5% (assuming a 2% trend).
Figure 3: Lewis-Mertens-Stock Weekly Economic Index (blue), and Baumeister-Leiva-Leon-Sims Weekly Economic Conditions Index for US and 2% trend (tan), all y/y growth rate in %. Source: NY Fed via FRED, WECI, accessed 11/1/2024, and author’s calculations.
GDPNow for Q4 is 2.3% today; The NY Fed is now at 2.01%.
Source link