{"id":477761,"date":"2025-10-06T08:55:38","date_gmt":"2025-10-06T08:55:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/477761\/"},"modified":"2025-10-06T08:55:38","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T08:55:38","slug":"the-economy-is-strong-and-inflation-is-high","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/477761\/","title":{"rendered":"The Economy Is Strong and Inflation Is High"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The consensus expects nonfarm payrolls for September to come in at 50,000, and I think that is too pessimistic. The charts below with incoming daily and weekly data for September show that:<\/p>\n<p>1) Trade policy uncertainty is improving<\/p>\n<p>2) Economic policy uncertainty is improving<\/p>\n<p>3) Consumer expectations to business conditions are improving<\/p>\n<p>4) Consumers are less worried about losing their jobs<\/p>\n<p>5) Corporate capex plans are improving, and jobless claims are still low<\/p>\n<p>6) The daily TSA data for the number of people traveling on airplanes is strong<\/p>\n<p>7) Data for the number of people going to Broadway shows, the movies and visiting the Statue of Liberty is strong<\/p>\n<p>8) Weekly data for same-store retail sales is strong<\/p>\n<p>9) Weekly data for bank lending is accelerating<\/p>\n<p>10) Weekly bankruptcy filings are starting to trend lower<\/p>\n<p>11) Weekly data for business formation is still strong<\/p>\n<p>12) There are significant upside risks to inflation in the regional Fed surveys and in ISM services price paid<\/p>\n<p>Combined with the Atlanta Fed expecting GDP growth in the third quarter at 3.9%, the bottom line is that the economy continues to do better than the consensus expects, and the labor market has likely weakened because of lower immigration and perhaps also AI implementation.<\/p>\n<p><strong>With continued strong growth and upside pressures on inflation from tariffs, immigration restrictions, and the declining dollar, the FOMC should really be talking about rate hikes rather than rate cuts.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Our chart book with high-frequency indicators for the US economy is available <a href=\"https:\/\/www.apolloacademy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Daily_and_weekly_data_US_093025_V3.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Sep30_Chart1.jpg\" alt=\"Trade policy uncertainty improving\" class=\"wp-image-174795\" width=\"1366\" height=\"768\"  \/>Sources: Economic Policy Uncertainty, Macrobond, Apollo Chief Economist<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Sep30_Chart2.jpg\" alt=\"Economic policy uncertainty improving\" class=\"wp-image-174799\" width=\"1366\" height=\"768\"  \/>Sources: Economic Policy Uncertainty, Macrobond, Apollo Chief Economist<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Sep30_Chart3.jpg\" alt=\"Consumer expectations to business conditions improving\" class=\"wp-image-174804\" width=\"1366\" height=\"768\"  \/>Sources: Conference Board, Macrobond, Apollo Chief Economist<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Sep30_Chart4.jpg\" alt=\"Consumers less worried about their jobs\" class=\"wp-image-174808\" width=\"1366\" height=\"768\"  \/>Sources: Conference Board, Macrobond, Apollo Chief Economist<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Sep30_Chart5.jpg\" alt=\"Corporate capex spending plans improving\" class=\"wp-image-174811\" width=\"1366\" height=\"768\"  \/>Sources: National Federation of Independent Business, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, Business Roundtable, Macrobond, Apollo Chief Economist<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Sep30_Chart6.jpg\" alt=\"Daily data for US air travel\" class=\"wp-image-174816\" width=\"1366\" height=\"768\"  \/>Sources: US Dept of Homeland Security, Macrobond, Apollo Chief Economist<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Sep30_Chart7.jpg\" alt=\"Weekly movie theatre visits\" class=\"wp-image-174821\" width=\"1366\" height=\"768\"  \/>Sources: Boxofficemojo.com, Apollo Chief Economist<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Sep30_Chart8.jpg\" alt=\"Weekly data for same-store retail sales\" class=\"wp-image-174825\" width=\"1366\" height=\"768\"  \/>Sources: Redbook Research Inc., Macrobond, Apollo Chief Economist<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Sep30_Chart9.jpg\" alt=\"Weekly loan growth for banks\" class=\"wp-image-174833\" width=\"1366\" height=\"768\"  \/>Sources: Federal Reserve, Macrobond, Apollo Chief Economist<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Sep30_Chart10.jpg\" alt=\"Weekly bankruptcy filings\" class=\"wp-image-174838\" width=\"1366\" height=\"768\"  \/>Note: Filings are for companies with more than $50 million in liabilities. For week ending on September 26, 2025. Sources: Bloomberg, Apollo Chief Economist <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Sep30_Chart11.jpg\" alt=\"Weekly business formation statistics\" class=\"wp-image-174848\" width=\"1366\" height=\"768\"  \/>Sources: US Census Bureau, Macrobond, Apollo Chief Economist<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Sep30_Chart12-2.jpg\" alt=\"Latest data points to upside risks to inflation\" class=\"wp-image-174861\" width=\"1366\" height=\"768\"  \/>Sources: Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, US Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), Macrobond, Apollo Chief Economist<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.apolloacademy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Daily_and_weekly_data_US_093025_V3.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Download high-res chart book<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The consensus expects nonfarm payrolls for September to come in at 50,000, and I think that is too&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":477762,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3090],"tags":[51,1700,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-477761","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115326388235998108","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=477761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477761\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/477762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}