The State of the Economy Thread - “Falling inflation, rising growth give U.S. the world’s best recovery”

[tshile]

17 minutes ago, NoCalMike said:

It got the point of frustration and we gave up. 

We were close. 6 months and probably 10 contracts before we found a house we eventually closed on. Most of it was us being out bid but we also walked from some during negotiations. 
 

we finally secured a private loan and purchased a house that was ripped down to the studs and remodeled the whole thing. Was a lot of work. 
 

had a couple we really liked where the list was like 280k and we’d offer like 315 which was pushing it for us at the time and the thing would sell for 450. It was obnoxious. 

[JSSkinz]

 

53 minutes ago, TheDoyler23 said:

There may be some opportunities for sure, but demand is high right now (despite record unemployment) and people aren't tremendously under water in equity like in 2008 when the bottom fell out. Some people may be waiting till next year and push demand as buying in a pandemic doesn't suit them. 

I just told him to keep an eye on things and be aware.  People weren't underwater in 2006 or most of 2007, they went under water because the market was flooded with pre foreclosure, foreclosure, and bank owned homes and it all happened very quickly and almost nobody predicted it.

 

As an example I purchased 3 condos in Orlando by Disney in 2009, I paid less than $115k collectively for all 3 properties and the liens on each property were over $150k.

 

Good deals aren't going to find you, you have to dig and research and you will be surprised.

 

I will say I have no idea about the DMV, been out of that area since 2004 and you're talking about several of the richest counties in the U.S. so there's a ton of cash buyers up there and it's difficult to beat a cash buyer.

 

Edited August 3, 2020 by JSSkinz

[RansomthePasserby]

1 hour ago, JSSkinz said:

 

I will say I have no idea about the DMV, been out of that area since 2004 and you're talking about several of the richest counties in the U.S. so there's a ton of cash buyers up there and it's difficult to beat a cash buyer.

 

Yup, have friends up here in NoVa who just bought a house last month. At the house they really wanted they were competing with three cash buyers. They didn’t stand a chance.

[The Sisko]

Were those cash buyers paying in yuan or rubles?

 

 

[gbear]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/08/05/adp-hiring-july-coronavirus/?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_adp-855am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans

 

I am not looking fwd to the jobs report this week. From memory, I thought we needed roughly 200k jobs to break even. Numbers south of that usually meant an increase in unemployment. I am slightly surprised this isnt a bigger news item, but it is competing w election news and trump's latest bumble of an interview.

 

On further thought, maybe I only think this is news because I am a geek.

Edited August 5, 2020 by gbear

[Cooked Crack]

 

 

[PleaseBlitz]

I predict that Trump tweets some truly bizarre/scary **** tomorrow because the jobs report is not looking good. 

[gbear]

I think there is an another cause not mentioned in the tweet above. More companies are failing/down sizing.

[EmirOfShmo]

This is from a daily Yahoo Finance email I get:

 

On Wednesday, ADP’s private payroll data for July showed that just 167,000 private sector jobs were created last month, far short of expectations. And it is worth noting at this point in the recovery that “created” jobs are really just positions that were reclaimed after shutdown measures were imposed nationwide in March.

 

Elsewhere in labor market data, the Institute for Supply Management published its July reading on activity in the services sector on Wednesday. And while this data showed a continued rebound in overall activity, employment was the most discouraging area of this report.

‌

ISM’s employment subindex fell further into contraction territory in July while overall activity moved further into expansion. The report said comments from survey respondents included: “Current freeze on all open positions” and “[Employment lower] due to retirements and departures; limited new hiring at this time.”

‌

Oren Klachkin, lead U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, said this data, while encouraging for the broader economy, suggests that employment will lag output as the economy heals.

‌

But if hiring lags, then consumer spending — which has fueled so much of this recovery — is at risk of remaining stalled or perhaps rolling over.

‌

Edit: Additional info about job projections.

 

On Friday, economists expect the government to report that employers added 1.6 million jobs in July, according to data provider FactSet, and that the unemployment rate declined from 11.1% to a still-high 10.5%. At any other time, a million or more jobs would constitute an unheard-of increase. But July's expected gain would fall way short of June's 4.8 million increase and would signal that hiring has sharply slowed. It would also mean that the economy has regained barely 40% of the jobs that fell to the coronavirus

...

“We’re kind of past the stage where we’re quickly recalling workers to their old jobs," Davis said, “and getting to the stage that people will need to get new jobs at new companies or in new industries.”

It is a trend that points to a grinding, sluggish recovery.

 

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/gone-good-evidence-signals-many-174211007.html

Edited August 7, 2020 by EmirOfShmo

[PleaseBlitz]

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/u-s-economy-gains-1-8-million-jobs-recovery-loses-n1236113

 

U.S. economy gains 1.8 million jobs as recovery loses momentum

 

Quote

The U.S. economy added 1.76 million jobs in July, down from 4.8 million jobs added in June, according to the monthly employment report released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

 

The unemployment rate fell from 11.1 percent to 10.2 percent.

 

While the numbers were better than expected, the bleak data adds to economists’ fears that the labor market recovery is flagging, as the coronavirus pandemic continues to sweep through large swaths of the country.

 

“We are seeing evidence that the economic recovery is losing steam. It's not reversing, but it looks like growth is flattening out,” said Daniel Zhao, senior economist at Glassdoor. “It seems like the recovery has slowed down and appears to be getting stuck in the doldrums.”

 

With millions of Americans still out of work, there is a growing concern that temporary job losses are becoming permanent — even as the safety net for the jobless is shrinking.

 

More at link. 

[gbear]

Interesting, Department of labor published a rosy jobs report today along with a drop in unemployment. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/08/07/july-2020-jobs-report/?tidr=a_breakingnews&hpid=hp_no-name_hp-breaking-news%3Apage%2Fbreaking-news-bar&itid=hp_rhp__no-name_hp-breaking-news%3Apage%2Fbreaking-news-bar

 

The caution should come in the details.  It is for the week of July 12.  The ADP report was for the week at the end of the month.  What the difference indicates to me is things may be going down faster if the entirety of the slow down came at the end.  Think about it.  To get the 1.2 million increase from the month before, that is roughly 300k jobs per week.  If the ADP numbers are correct, that number dropped to 160k ( a bit over half what hiring was a couple weeks before).  My final caution is both of these are single data points, and it is dangerous to predict trends based on a single data point.

 

 

Edited August 7, 2020 by gbear

[No Excuses]

The real time indicators for the economy show a slump happening. Coupled with today’s data, which reflects 3 weeks ago when cases started rising again, we probably stalled the recovery and are likely on a downward trend at the moment. 

[CousinsCowgirl84]

“US Jobs recovery takes a massive hit” is a very misleading headline. The jobs report was significantly better than expected....

[Renegade7]

That jobs report looks to try to be as good as possible versus reality.

 

Bullocks.   How many weeks in a row we lose a million jobs now?  Aren't there like 31 million people on unemployment?  Didn't we jus call out the last jobs report as being suspect AF?

[PleaseBlitz]

8 minutes ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

“US Jobs recovery takes a massive hit” is a very misleading headline. The jobs report was significantly better than expected...

 

It was expected to be apocalyptic based on last week's GDP report and ADPs advance report, so it can be both better than expected and still very bad.

 

The economy lost 13 million jobs in the past 5 months.  We added nearly 5 million back last month, the hope was that improvement would be linear and the economy would continue to grow and add jobs at that pace.  The economy significantly slowing down again and adding only 1.8 million jobs IS a massive hit to the jobs recovery.  

[CousinsCowgirl84]

The jobs number was way better than expected. It’s a fact. CNN spun it to fit their narrative.

Edited August 7, 2020 by CousinsCowgirl84

[PleaseBlitz]

11 minutes ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

The jobs number was way better than expected. It’s a fact. CNN spun it to fit their narrative.

I mean Fox News said economists “expected the report to show that unemployment dropped to 10.5% and the economy added 1.6 million jobs.”  So “way better” seems like a stretch. 
 

https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/july-jobs-report-coronavirus-pandemic-2020
 

In any event, adding 5 million jobs one month and only 1.8 the next is a big downturn for the hoped-for recovery.   Not even sure what your issue is other than not liking “the narrative.”

[NoCalMike]

The other factor missing is the longer term effects on jobs.  I work for an insurance company, my department specifically didn't lose much business even throughout the heart of the crisis, however as a company revenue went down and while it started to rebound way sooner than expected, the 2021 forecasts are really what is worrying some companies because a lot of people holding onto their insurance for now could be forced to drop plans in the coming months depending on where the country goes with covid19.

 

We are still a long ways away from getting past Covid19 and in a lot of ways we are trending in the wrong direction.  I don't know how much stock we can put on jobs reports in the middle of a pandemic when it seems like every day we wake up the policy has changed about what can be opened, what restrictions are in place, what the rates of infection/deaths are now....etc etc etc....

 

[EmirOfShmo]

Government jobs rose by 301,000 in July, after an increase of 54,000 in June.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/july-2020-jobs-report-labor-department-coronavirus-pandemic-unemployment-rate-191513556.html

 

Which means the total jobs increase in July – outside government – was 1.46 million.

 

Another negative sign ahead of a crucial jobs report.

After a strong rebound in May and June, the labor market appears to have taken a step back in July.

On Thursday, the latest job cut data from job placement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas showed a 54% increase in job cuts last month after two months of declines after an early spring surge.

In July, some 262,649, jobs were cut, according to Challenger, Gray, the third-largest monthly total ever behind April’s 671,129 and May’s 397,016. The report showed that 77,092 of the announced cuts cited market conditions while COVID-19 caused 63,517 cuts in July. Some 60,831 job cuts were due to a demand downturn and 17,069 cuts were due to voluntary severance/buyouts.

 

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/challenger-gray-job-cuts-rose-54-percent-in-july-morning-brief-100254221.html

 

Question: How are furloughed workers counted in the jobs reports?

[gbear]

To me the concern is the difference between the ADP who process payroll and the Department of Labor report.  The biggest difference in methodology I see is the time frame in question.  The Labor report compares two days a month apart and says between Jun12 and July 12.  Then we get 2 weeks later, and we are adding 167k jobs.  Now lets go back one month when we added 5 million jobs.  So we have 5mil (more than a million a week) for a month.  Then we have 1.8 million (400k + a week) to the most recent number of 167k for the most recent week measured. I am unsure what people were looking for in the jobs report to surprise them.  The number falls between the numbers we had for the time before and the time after.  All it does for me is show the pattern of a slowing recovery many are seeing/noting anecdotally.  I would also note that while the drop off isn't linear (and might appear worse), I don't think there is enough there to read into it as there are multiple methodologies in play and still only a couple of data points.    

[Renegade7]

39 minutes ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

The jobs number was way better than expected. It’s a fact. CNN spun it to fit their narrative.

 

If you swim down 100ft of water, but only swim up 25ft, you still under 75ft of water and going to drown if you stay there.

 

Not buying what's being sold here at all.

[gbear]

Furloughed

1 minute ago, EmirOfShmo said:

 

 

Question: How are furloughed workers counted in the jobs reports?

That was an issue in the 5 million "rebound" number too.  Many of them reported in a way that was counting them as employed.  It was noted as an issue with the number, but I do not know if the methodology was changed, and I am not sure it should be.  Often they try to keep those methodologies the same because the change from one reading to another means more to most people's understanding of the numbers than the numbers themselves. 

 

I tried to go over some of how we understand large numbers, like the 150K dead.  Why Aren't We More Upset By 120k Dead Americans?

[CousinsCowgirl84]

2 hours ago, Renegade7 said:

 

If you swim down 100ft of water, but only swim up 25ft, you still under 75ft of water and going to drown if you stay there.

 

huh?  That is not how the CNN headline is framed and I hope you know it.  Going up 25ft isn’t a massive hit to your chances of making it to the surface.

 

“Did CNN present the facts fairly and honestly?” is a completely different question than “is the economy recovering?”...

 

 

Edited August 7, 2020 by CousinsCowgirl84

[visionary]

Don’t we usually have to wait a few days for the actual job numbers to leak?  Lol.

[Renegade7]

7 minutes ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

huh?  That is not how the CNN headline is framed and I hope you know it.  Going up 25ft isn’t a massive hit to your chances of making it to the surface.

 

“Did CNN present the facts fairly and honestly?” is a completely different question than “is the economy recovering?”...

 

I dont care about a news organizations take here, this is about reality on the ground and how we are still underwater.  

 

If you want to respond to a post from me, please respond to this one first:

 

6 hours ago, Renegade7 said:

That jobs report looks to try to be as good as possible versus reality.

 

Bullocks.   How many weeks in a row we lose a million jobs now?  Aren't there like 31 million people on unemployment?  Didn't we jus call out the last jobs report as being suspect AF?