Unemployment claims, personal income and consumption, total vehicle sales

Who would have thought?


This is through August which included Federal unemployment benefits that have subsequently expired.
Income is now weaker than it was at the time of this report:


Without transfer receipts income continues to lag pre covid levels:


This is likely to go down in September with expiring Federal benefits:

Consumer confidence, Richmond Fed, dollar index, CS house prices

Familiar pattern:

Similar pattern- covid dip, bounce, fade:

Remember all the talk about how all the money printing stuff after the crash and for covid, etc. was going to trash the $US, etc.?
It’s not that easy to forecast:


This is only through July. Seems to turn down in front of recessions, but the data
is from two months back so by the time you see the index turn down the recession
is probably already well underway:

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Services pmi, German survey, UK retail sales, oil, new home sales

Pretty much the whole world had a covid dip, bounce, and most recently a retreat as the economy appears to be rapidly decelerating as unemployment benefits expired and what’s left of the new fiscal spending is relatively small and keeps getting pushed out:


Crude oil is another story. There was a covid dip as the drop in demand exceeded Saudi output, which caused them to lose control of output. Now that demand has recovered they are back in control of prices, and currently they are in price hike mode:


Up a bit last month but still looking depressed historically:

Unemployment claims, trade, vehicle sales

Still way above the 200,000 pre covid levels.
Makes me wonder why so many people are still losing jobs:


Weaker imports is likely a sign of a weaker US consumer:


And oil isn’t much of a factor anymore:

This is seriously low as supply issues continue:

Dried-Up Inventory Sinks U.S. Light-Vehicle Sales in August :: Wards Intelligence (informa.com)

August’s annualized rate was tracking about one million units higher until the inventory-drain worsened enough that sales nosedived at the end of the month, which does not bode well for the upcoming Labor Day weekend (as well as entire-September), when the market usually gets a boost from holiday deals and promotions.