Recently, we've been writing more frequently about the environment being late cycle. For instance, here's our comparison of the current environment to Taleb's Turkey. This morning's numbers, while very good optically, should be taken with a grain of salt as they reflect the holiday-shortened week and the holiday fell on a different week this year. We'll hold off judgement until we see next week's print.
The bigger picture remains that of #tick-tock, tick-tock ....
In energy states, the spread between claims in our basket of energy states and the country as a whole was little changed in the week ending September 5, widening from 9.5 to 10.2.
The Data
Prior to revision, initial jobless claims fell 11k to 264k from 275k WoW, as the prior week's number was unrevised. Meanwhile, the 4-week rolling average of seasonally-adjusted claims fell -3.25k WoW to 272.5k.
The 4-week rolling average of NSA claims, another way of evaluating the data, was -9.0% lower YoY, which is a sequential improvement versus the previous week's YoY change of -6.6%
Yield Spreads
The 2-10 spread rose 3 basis points WoW to 149 bps. 3Q15TD, the 2-10 spread is averaging 155 bps, which is lower by -4 bps relative to 2Q15.
Joshua Steiner, CFA
Jonathan Casteleyn, CFA, CMT
