A litany of economic data has hit the tape on this holiday-shortened week, with numbers we’d normally see on Thursday like jobless claims, condensed in to this final full trading day of the week. (Tomorrow, Christmas Eve, will be operating only a half day, closing at 1pm ET.) Some are higher than expected, some are lower; most of them are noteworthy in their own way.
Initial Jobless Claims took a big step down — to 803K last week from an upwardly revised 892K the previous week. These figures, on a steep upward trajectory since mid-November, are thankfully taken down in the latest numbers. Then again, the only glitch in that upward weekly graph was the week of Thanksgiving — the last time the figures were reported earlier than normally scheduled.
Continuing Claims continued its steady downward tick, reaching 5.34 million from 5.51 million reported the previous week. This makes 14 of the last 15 weeks Continuing Claims have moved lower.
Though unemployment claims weren’t as bad as some had expected, Personal Income for November posted a real disappointment: -1.1% is almost 4x worse than the -0.3% analysts were looking for, and well off the revised -0.6% reported for October. It also marks the sixth drop in personal earnings in the last nine months, hitting a low of -4.2% in May. Of course, comparing previous month income numbers with previous week jobless claims is pretty much apples-to-oranges, and maybe this new tick in the right direction on claims will represent higher Personal Income for December.
Consumer Spending for November was right in the wheelhouse of expectation: -0.4%, basically a reversal from October’s +0.5%. Again, we’re talking a week in arrears, so this data is basically outside the holiday shopping season for this year. Those numbers won’t be out for another month, besides what we see from what the retailers themselves announce. What we’re seeing in terms of Fall 2020 income and spending is a continued tightening in the face of the worsening pandemic, but with consumers doing their best amid the circumstances, and (hopefully) hopeful for a better new year.
Durable Goods Orders, also for November, reached +0.9% — the seventh month in a row of positive durables orders — and better than analysts had expected. Still, they’re cut in half from October’s upwardly revised +1.8%, and starting to slow from the double-digit reads we’d seen last spring and summer, but not too shabby. These are preliminary numbers, subject to future revisions, with ex-Transportation coming in at +0.4% (a disappointment) and ex-Defense spending +0.7%.
Core Capital Goods Orders for last month came in at +0.4%, again half of the originally reported +0.8% for October, and the same as the business investment proxy read (non-Defense, ex-aircraft — basically stripping out extraordinarily big orders which can distort the data). Shipments fell to +0.4% in November, dropping 200 basis points month over month. Again, we’re looking in the rearview mirror here; October was pre-second-wave of the pandemic, and way pre-vaccine. Market participants would do well to file these figures properly, but not let them dictate forward direction.
After the opening bell, we’ll see November’s New Home Sales data. This follows yesterday’s Existing Home Sales numbers, which slightly outperformed expectations to 6.69 million units last month. As we know, housing has been a major economic driver for the latter half of 2020, and analysts expect this to continue for now. Also, Consumer Sentiment for December will bring its latest print; analysts are looking for an in-line to down 81.0 month over month.
Image: Bigstock
Economic Data Deluge
A litany of economic data has hit the tape on this holiday-shortened week, with numbers we’d normally see on Thursday like jobless claims, condensed in to this final full trading day of the week. (Tomorrow, Christmas Eve, will be operating only a half day, closing at 1pm ET.) Some are higher than expected, some are lower; most of them are noteworthy in their own way.
Initial Jobless Claims took a big step down — to 803K last week from an upwardly revised 892K the previous week. These figures, on a steep upward trajectory since mid-November, are thankfully taken down in the latest numbers. Then again, the only glitch in that upward weekly graph was the week of Thanksgiving — the last time the figures were reported earlier than normally scheduled.
Continuing Claims continued its steady downward tick, reaching 5.34 million from 5.51 million reported the previous week. This makes 14 of the last 15 weeks Continuing Claims have moved lower.
Though unemployment claims weren’t as bad as some had expected, Personal Income for November posted a real disappointment: -1.1% is almost 4x worse than the -0.3% analysts were looking for, and well off the revised -0.6% reported for October. It also marks the sixth drop in personal earnings in the last nine months, hitting a low of -4.2% in May. Of course, comparing previous month income numbers with previous week jobless claims is pretty much apples-to-oranges, and maybe this new tick in the right direction on claims will represent higher Personal Income for December.
Consumer Spending for November was right in the wheelhouse of expectation: -0.4%, basically a reversal from October’s +0.5%. Again, we’re talking a week in arrears, so this data is basically outside the holiday shopping season for this year. Those numbers won’t be out for another month, besides what we see from what the retailers themselves announce. What we’re seeing in terms of Fall 2020 income and spending is a continued tightening in the face of the worsening pandemic, but with consumers doing their best amid the circumstances, and (hopefully) hopeful for a better new year.
Durable Goods Orders, also for November, reached +0.9% — the seventh month in a row of positive durables orders — and better than analysts had expected. Still, they’re cut in half from October’s upwardly revised +1.8%, and starting to slow from the double-digit reads we’d seen last spring and summer, but not too shabby. These are preliminary numbers, subject to future revisions, with ex-Transportation coming in at +0.4% (a disappointment) and ex-Defense spending +0.7%.
Core Capital Goods Orders for last month came in at +0.4%, again half of the originally reported +0.8% for October, and the same as the business investment proxy read (non-Defense, ex-aircraft — basically stripping out extraordinarily big orders which can distort the data). Shipments fell to +0.4% in November, dropping 200 basis points month over month. Again, we’re looking in the rearview mirror here; October was pre-second-wave of the pandemic, and way pre-vaccine. Market participants would do well to file these figures properly, but not let them dictate forward direction.
After the opening bell, we’ll see November’s New Home Sales data. This follows yesterday’s Existing Home Sales numbers, which slightly outperformed expectations to 6.69 million units last month. As we know, housing has been a major economic driver for the latter half of 2020, and analysts expect this to continue for now. Also, Consumer Sentiment for December will bring its latest print; analysts are looking for an in-line to down 81.0 month over month.