Thursday, February 17, 2022
Pre-market futures are down this morning, grown demonstrably worse upon the release of some key economic data an hour ahead of the opening bell. Weekly jobless claims, along with Housing Starts/Building Permits for January and Philly Fed for February articulate our economic reality as the Dow is -140 points at this hour, the S&P 500 is -35 and the Nasdaq is tumbling another -220 points.
Initial Jobless Claims for last week demonstrate the volatility we’ve seen lately in other economic metrics: a headline of 248K new claims jumps +23K from the upwardly revised previous week, just as we had begun to think the Omicron variant on the wane was going to bring new claims back below 200K, like we saw back in November and December of last year.
Continuing Claims, on the other hand, came in at 1.593 million — the lowest weekly figure we’ve seen since the first week of the year — and a good step below the upwardly revised 1.62 million the previous week. We are currently back to pre-pandemic levels in longer-term jobless claims, even while new claims remain stubbornly higher. Again, the volatile nature of today’s job market, especially in lower-wage jobs, holds precedence.
Housing Starts for the month of January came in below expectations to 1.64 million seasonally adjusted, annualized units, -4.1% from an expected -0.7%. This is also down from the upwardly revised 1.71 million in December. This represents roughly the mid-point of the last 12 months, even though it had begun to look like we were on a pre-spring upswing toward 1.75 million per month.
Building Permits, also for January, were better than expected to 1.90 million from the 1.75 million estimate, up slightly from the unrevised 1.89 million the previous month — +0.7% versus -6.6% anticipated. Typically, building permits are a clear forward indicator of future starts, however we are not currently in a typical period for housing: a combination of supply and labor shortages and higher prices are creating delays and cancellations in new housing creation.
For the second regional productivity survey in the past week, Philly Fed came in below expectations for February: 16.0 was below the 19.0 expected and the unrevised 23.2 for January. The Empire State survey also disappointed for the current month; though they still carry positive reads, we may be witnessing a slowdown in manufacturing in New York and Philadelphia, the two largest cities in the Northeastern U.S.
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Jobless Claims Up; Housing Starts, Philly Fed Down
Thursday, February 17, 2022
Pre-market futures are down this morning, grown demonstrably worse upon the release of some key economic data an hour ahead of the opening bell. Weekly jobless claims, along with Housing Starts/Building Permits for January and Philly Fed for February articulate our economic reality as the Dow is -140 points at this hour, the S&P 500 is -35 and the Nasdaq is tumbling another -220 points.
Initial Jobless Claims for last week demonstrate the volatility we’ve seen lately in other economic metrics: a headline of 248K new claims jumps +23K from the upwardly revised previous week, just as we had begun to think the Omicron variant on the wane was going to bring new claims back below 200K, like we saw back in November and December of last year.
Continuing Claims, on the other hand, came in at 1.593 million — the lowest weekly figure we’ve seen since the first week of the year — and a good step below the upwardly revised 1.62 million the previous week. We are currently back to pre-pandemic levels in longer-term jobless claims, even while new claims remain stubbornly higher. Again, the volatile nature of today’s job market, especially in lower-wage jobs, holds precedence.
Housing Starts for the month of January came in below expectations to 1.64 million seasonally adjusted, annualized units, -4.1% from an expected -0.7%. This is also down from the upwardly revised 1.71 million in December. This represents roughly the mid-point of the last 12 months, even though it had begun to look like we were on a pre-spring upswing toward 1.75 million per month.
Building Permits, also for January, were better than expected to 1.90 million from the 1.75 million estimate, up slightly from the unrevised 1.89 million the previous month — +0.7% versus -6.6% anticipated. Typically, building permits are a clear forward indicator of future starts, however we are not currently in a typical period for housing: a combination of supply and labor shortages and higher prices are creating delays and cancellations in new housing creation.
For the second regional productivity survey in the past week, Philly Fed came in below expectations for February: 16.0 was below the 19.0 expected and the unrevised 23.2 for January. The Empire State survey also disappointed for the current month; though they still carry positive reads, we may be witnessing a slowdown in manufacturing in New York and Philadelphia, the two largest cities in the Northeastern U.S.
Questions or comments about this article and/or its author? Click here>>