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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- We look for an underwhelming 0.2% rise in retail sales in November, with control sales unchanged.
- A raft of indicators suggests consumers are tiring; we look for spending growth of just 1% in Q4.
- The Fed is still independent; a grand jury is unlikely to bring an indictment against Chair Powell.
Overstating the gloom, but a downbeat message nonetheless.
Signs of stabilization, but big headwinds remain.
Still weak enough to sustain the pressure for more Fed easing.
- The trend in payrolls is unlikely to improve in Q1; catch-up growth in healthcare jobs is now over...
- ...And December’s jump in leisure and hospitality payrolls looks set to unwind, just like a year ago.
- The sharp rise in involuntary part-time working is a red flag, signaling that layoffs will pick up in Q1.
Still an unreliable guide to services spending.
- Unadjusted initial and continuing jobless claims are almost unchanged from a year ago...
- ...But this is partly due to low seasonal hiring; claims also miss rising youth and long-term unemployment.
- The Q3 productivity jump merely returns it to trend; tariffs and immigration curbs will limit growth in 2026.
- JOLTS hiring less separations ought to provide a useful cross-check on payrolls, but the track record is poor.
- Small business openings remain low, but they lag the NFIB hiring index too much to refute its recent pick-up.
- The inclusion of retailers means the ISM services survey provides a useful steer on tariff-driven inflation.
- We look for a 0.3% increase in the December core CPI, with the risks skewed strongly towards a 0.4% print.
- Late data collection biased downwards the November CPIs for core goods and lodging away from home...
- ...These CPIs will rebound in December, alongside a big rise in airline fares and possibly auto insurance.
Still struggling for momentum.
- 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.
