US Publications
Below is a list of our US Publications for the last 5 months. If you are looking for reports older than 5 months please email info@pantheonmacro.com, or contact your account rep
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- Tariff revenues fell in December and remain well below levels expected by independent fiscal watchdogs.
- Nearly all of the boost to consumer prices from the tariffs has filtered through; the outlook is benign.
- Home sales are likely to recover in 2026 as mortgage rates fall, but still fall short of pre-pandemic levels.
Yet more grim news on the labor market.
Manufacturing is surviving rather than thriving.
Q3's strength is unlikely to be sustained.
- We look for a modest 75K rise in payrolls and a small fall in the unemployment rate to 4.5% in December.
- Retailers and hospitality firms hired cautiously; consumers continue to report worsening job availability.
- The FOMC still looks likely to pause in January, but the case for easing again will be robust by March.
- We think GDP grew by 3½% in Q3, underpinned by a solid increase in consumers’ spending.
- AI-related capex likely also lifted fixed investment, while net trade made a big positive contribution too.
- But growth seems to have slowed sharply in Q4, mostly due to weakness among households.
THE PAUSE IN THE FED’S EASING CYCLE WILL BE BRIEF...
- ...THE LABOR MARKET WILL REMAIN WEAK, INFLATION FALL
Limited further upside for sales.
- Only a small fraction of the big downward benchmark revision to payrolls is due to the birth-death model.
- The sectoral mix of the revision implies benchmarking is removing only a few unauthorized workers.
- The main problem—still unresolved—is the BLS is not obtaining a representative sample of firms.
- Measurement issues depressed November goods prices, airline fares, rent and auto insurance....
- ...We see no evidence of a slowing in the trend in core-core services prices yet.
- But the outlook looks benign; tariffs are now mostly passed through, while wages and rents are slowing.
The implied jump in services inflation makes little sense.
October's strength in control sales looks unlikely to last.
Lackluster, but not alarming enough for a January easing.
- The NFIB survey’s hiring intentions index increased in November to its highest level since May 2023...
- ...But first estimates of private payrolls have undershot its implied level by 50K on average since Q1.
- The regional Fed surveys and the Census Bureau’s biweekly business survey show weaker hiring plans.
- Private payrolls are no longer slowing and the jump in unemployment was mostly due to the shutdown.
- Unemployment ex-temporary layoffs, however, is above its pre-Covid norm, and wider slack is building.
- Some indicators of hiring indicators have improved recently, but layoff plans also have picked up.
Likely a high watermark for now.
Manufacturing capex and hiring likely to remain very weak
- Core CPI inflation likely fell to 2.9% in November, slightly below consensus, from 3.0% in September.
- Auto prices have remained unaffected by tariffs; increases in other goods prices have slowed.
- The rebound in airline fares probably has petered out; rent increases likely continue to slow gradually.
- We expect a first estimate of a mere 50K rise in November payrolls, despite slightly better surveys...
- ...Retailers have hired relatively few seasonal workers; the upward bias in the first estimate should be mild.
- The unemployment rate likely ticked up to 4.5% in November, from 4.4% in October.
Much weaker wage growth likely lies ahead.
