Both industrial and manufacturing production beat Bloomberg estimates (+0.1% vs 0%). Here's a picture of some of the key indicators followed by the NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee, as well as monthly GDP and GDPNow (the latter rose to 2.4% today, while the 1/10 SAAR was at 2.2%).
figure 1: Nonfarm payrolls included in preliminary benchmark (bold dark blue), using Bloomberg consensus implied levels as of 1/3 (blue+), civilian employment (orange), industrial production (red), 2017 excluding Transferred personal income $ (bold green), 2017 manufacturing and trade sales $ (black), 2017 consumption $ (light blue), 2017 monthly GDP $ (pink), GDP second release (blue Color bars) and GDPNow for 2023Q4 as of 1/17 (lavender box), all logarithms normalized to 2021M11=0. Source: BLS via FRED, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics preliminary benchmarksFederal Reserve, BEA 2023Q3 2nd Edition, contains comprehensive revisions, S&P Global/IHS Markit (Nigerian macroeconomic consultant, IHS Markit) (1/3/Released in 2024), Federal Reserve Bank of Atlantaand the author's calculations.
The evolution of the GDPNow forecast highlights how the latest news continues to push back the likely date for the start of the recession. While GDPNow raised the forecast by about 0.2 percentage points, Goldman Sachs raised its tracking forecast by 0.3 percentage points to 1.8%. Their forecast for final sales growth has also been raised to 2.5% (GDPNow's forecast for final demand is 2.9%).
source: Federal Reserve Bank of Atlantaviewed on January 17, 2024.
Other data released today were surprising, with name retail sales increasing by 0.6% month-on-month, while market expectations were for a 0.4% increase. Below is a time series graph of the retail sales contraction and retail and food service sales.
figure 2: Actual retail sales (blue) and retail and food service sales (tan), November 2021 log = 0. Reduction using chained CPI, adjusted by the author via X13. Source: Bureau of Census and Labor Statistics (FRED) and author's calculations.
