by Calculated Risk on 9/07/2025 08:09:00 AM

From the Association of American Railroads (AAR) AAR Data Center. Graph and excerpts reprinted with permission.

The AAR Freight Rail Index (FRI), which measures seasonally adjusted month to-month rail intermodal shipments plus carloads excluding coal and grain, fell 0.5% in August 2025 from July 2025, its fourth decline in the past five months. Still, the index remains relatively strong: since 2008, it’s been higher than it was in August less than 15% of the time.
emphasis added

Rail intermodal volumes are closely tied to port activity (especially in the west) and the consumer side of the economy. In August, U.S. rail intermodal shipments were up 0.5% over last year. Average weekly intermodal volume in August 2025 was 284,316 containers and trailers, the most for any month since May 2021 and the most for August since 2018.
...
Meanwhile, year-over-year total U.S. rail carloads rose 0.7% in August 2025 over August 2024, marking six consecutive monthly gains. Eleven of the 20 major carload categories tracked by the AAR saw gains in August, the sixth straight month in which at least half the categories saw increases. Total carloads averaged 230,184 per week in August 2025, the most for any month since October 2022. In 2025 through August, total carloads were up 2.5%, or nearly 192,000 carloads, over last year.

by Calculated Risk on 9/06/2025 02:11:00 PM

At the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter this week:

Click on graph for larger image.

• Q2 Update: Delinquencies, Foreclosures and REO

• Freddie Mac House Price Index Declined in July; Up 1.4% Year-over-Year

• What will happen with House Prices?

• Asking Rents Mostly Unchanged Year-over-year

This is usually published 4 to 6 times a week and provides more in-depth analysis of the housing market.

by Calculated Risk on 9/06/2025 08:11:00 AM

The key economic report this week is the August Consumer Price Index (CPI).

The BLS will release the preliminary employment benchmark revision on Tuesday.

----- Monday, September 8th -----
No major economic releases scheduled.

----- Tuesday, September 9th -----
6:00 AM: NFIB Small Business Optimism Index for August.

10:00 AM: the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) will release the Current Employment Statistics Preliminary Benchmark (National) for March 2025.

----- Wednesday, September 10th -----
7:00 AM ET: The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) will release the results for the mortgage purchase applications index.

8:30 AM: The Producer Price Index for August from the BLS. The consensus is for a 0.3% increase in PPI, and a 0.3% increase in core PPI.

----- Thursday, September 11th -----
8:30 AM: The initial weekly unemployment claims report will be released. The consensus is for initial claims to increase to 240 thousand from 237 thousand last week.

8:30 AM: The Consumer Price Index for August from the BLS. The consensus is for a 0.3% increase in CPI, and a 0.3% increase in core CPI.  The consensus is for CPI to be up 2.9% year-over-year (up from 2.7% in July) and core CPI to be up 3.1% YoY (unchanged from 3.1% in July).

12:00 PM: Q2 Flow of Funds Accounts of the United States from the Federal Reserve.

----- Friday, September 12th -----
10:00 AM: University of Michigan's Consumer sentiment index (Preliminary for September).

by Calculated Risk on 9/05/2025 03:58:00 PM

Hotel occupancy was weak over the summer months, likely due to less international tourism.  The fall months are mostly domestic travel.

From STR: U.S. hotel results for week ending 30 August

The U.S. hotel industry reported mostly positive year-over-year comparisons, according to CoStar’s latest data through 30 August. ...

24-30 August 2025 (percentage change from comparable week in 2024):

• Occupancy: 63.4% (-0.8%)
• Average daily rate (ADR): US$155.87 (+1.0%)
• Revenue per available room (RevPAR): US$98.88 (+0.2%)
emphasis added

The following graph shows the seasonal pattern for the hotel occupancy rate using the four-week average.

Click on graph for larger image.

The red line is for 2025, blue is the median, and dashed light blue is for 2024.  Dashed purple is for 2018, the record year for hotel occupancy. 

The 4-week average of the occupancy rate is tracking behind last year and close to the median rate for the period 2000 through 2024 (Blue).

Note: Y-axis doesn't start at zero to better show the seasonal change.

The 4-week average will decrease seasonally until the Fall travel period.

On a year-to-date basis, the only worse years for occupancy over the last 25 years were pandemic or recession years.

by Calculated Risk on 9/05/2025 03:11:00 PM

From BofA:

[O]ur 3Q GDP tracking has moved up a tenth to 1.6%. Also, our 2Q GDP tracking is down a tenth to 3.2% from the second estiamte of 2Q GDP by the BEA. [September 5th comment]
emphasis added

From Goldman:

We lowered our Q3 GDP tracking estimate by 0.1pp to +1.6% (quarter-over-quarter annualized). We left our Q3 domestic final sales estimate unchanged at +0.7%. [September 4th estimate]

And from the Atlanta Fed:

The GDPNow model estimate for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the third quarter of 2025 is 3.0 percent on September 4, unchanged from September 2 after rounding. After recent releases from the US Bureau of Economic Analysis, the US Census Bureau, and the Institute for Supply Management, increases in the nowcasts of real personal consumption expenditures growth and real gross private domestic investment growth from 1.7 percent and 5.3 percent, respectively, to 2.1 percent and 6.0 percent, were more than offset by a decline in the nowcast in the contribution on net exports to GDP growth from 0.69 percentage points to 0.28 percentage points. [September 4th estimate]

by Calculated Risk on 9/05/2025 12:05:00 PM

Today, in the Real Estate Newsletter: What will happen with House Prices?

Brief excerpt:

Almost every day a journalist or an analyst asks me what will happen with house prices.

Every cycle is different, and usually I focus on inventory, sales, and months-of-supply to answer this question.

However, there have been significant policy changes this year, especially with trade and immigration. This has led to a period of rising inflation, and a weakening employment situation (rising unemployment rate). A period of stagflation.

These are powerful forces for the economy and housing.
...
But what is the impact of rising unemployment?

The following graph shows the year-over-year in the Case-Shiller National Index versus the Sahm rule (from economist Claudia Sahm). The Sahm rule is a measure of changes in the unemployment rate. It compares the three-month moving average of the unemployment rate (U3) to the minimum of the three-month averages from the previous 12 months.

In general, a rising unemployment rate corresponds to weaker house prices. Of course, correlation does not imply causation. And there are exceptions - like at the onset of the pandemic when the unemployment increased sharply, but house prices took off (mortgage rates fell sharply and most potential homebuyers stayed employed).

This is much more in the article.

by Calculated Risk on 9/05/2025 09:11:00 AM

The headline jobs number in the August employment report was below expectations and June and July payrolls were revised down by 21,000 combined.  A weak report. The participation rate increased, the employment population ratio was unchanged, and the unemployment rate was increased to 4.3%.

Earlier: August Employment Report: 22 thousand Jobs, 4.3% Unemployment Rate

Prime (25 to 54 Years Old) Participation

Since the overall participation rate is impacted by both cyclical (recession) and demographic (aging population, younger people staying in school) reasons, here is the employment-population ratio for the key working age group: 25 to 54 years old.

The 25 to 54 years old participation rate increased in August to 83.7% from 83.4% in July.

The 25 to 54 employment population ratio increased to 80.7% from 80.4% the previous month.

Both are down from the recent peaks, but still near the highest level this millennium.

Average Hourly Wages

The graph shows the nominal year-over-year change in "Average Hourly Earnings" for all private employees from the Current Employment Statistics (CES).  

There was a huge increase at the beginning of the pandemic as lower paid employees were let go, and then the pandemic related spike reversed a year later.

Wage growth has trended down after peaking at 5.9% YoY in March 2022 and was at 3.7% YoY in August, down from 3.9% YoY in July.

Part Time for Economic Reasons

From the BLS report:

"The number of people employed part time for economic reasons, at 4.7 million, changed little in August. These individuals would have preferred full-time employment but were working part time because their hours had been reduced or they were unable to find full-time jobs."

The number of persons working part time for economic reasons increased in August to 4.75 million from 4.68 million in July.  This is above the pre-pandemic levels.

These workers are included in the alternate measure of labor underutilization (U-6) that increased to 8.1% from 7.9% in the previous month. This is down from the record high in April 2020 of 22.9% and up from the lowest level on record (seasonally adjusted) in December 2022 (6.6%). (This series started in 1994). This measure is above the 7.0% level in February 2020 (pre-pandemic).

Unemployed over 26 Weeks

This graph shows the number of workers unemployed for 27 weeks or more.

According to the BLS, there are 1.93 million workers who have been unemployed for more than 26 weeks and still want a job, up from 1.83 million the previous month.

This is down from post-pandemic high of 4.171 million, and up from the recent low of 1.056 million.

This is above pre-pandemic levels.

Job Streak

The recent streak of positive job reports ended in May (Payrolls were negative in June).  The recent streak finished in 2nd place of the longest job streaks in US history (since 1939).

Headline Jobs, Top 10 Streaks
	Year Ended	Streak, Months
1	2020	113
2	2025	531
3	1990	48
4	2007	46
5	1979	45
6 tie	1943	33
6 tie	1986	33
6 tie	2000	33
9	1967	29
10	1995	25
1Recent Streak Ended in May

Summary:

The headline jobs number in the August employment report was below expectations and June and July payrolls were revised down by 21,000 combined.  The unemployment rate increased to 4.3%.

This was a weak employment report.  

by Calculated Risk on 9/05/2025 08:30:00 AM

From the BLS: Employment Situation

Total nonfarm payroll employment changed little in August (+22,000) and has shown little change since April, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported today. The unemployment rate, at 4.3 percent, also changed little in August. A job gain in health care was partially offset by losses in federal government and in mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction.
...
The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for June was revised down by 27,000, from +14,000 to -13,000, and the change for July was revised up by 6,000, from +73,000 to +79,000. With these revisions, employment in June and July combined is 21,000 lower than previously reported.
emphasis added

Click on graph for larger image.

The first graph shows the jobs added per month since January 2021.

Total payrolls increased by 22 thousand in August.  Private payrolls increased by 38 thousand, and public payrolls decreased 16 thousand (Federal payrolls decreased 15 thousand).

Payrolls for June and July were revised down by 21 thousand, combined.  The economy lost jobs in June.

The second graph shows the year-over-year change in total non-farm employment since 1968.

In August, the year-over-year change was 1.47 million jobs.  Year-over-year employment growth is slowing.

The third graph shows the employment population ratio and the participation rate.

The Labor Force Participation Rate increased to 62.3% in August, from 62.2% in July. This is the percentage of the working age population in the labor force.

The Employment-Population ratio was unchanged at 59.6% from 59.6% in July (blue line).

I'll post the 25 to 54 age group employment-population ratio graph later.

The fourth graph shows the unemployment rate.

The unemployment rate was increased to 4.3% in August from 4.2% in July.

This was below consensus expectations and June and July payrolls were revised down by 21,000 combined.  

A weak report.

I'll have more later ...

by Calculated Risk on 9/04/2025 08:01:00 PM

Note: Mortgage rates are from MortgageNewsDaily.com and are for top tier scenarios.

Friday:
• At 8:30 AM: Employment Report for August. The consensus is for 78,000 jobs added, and for the unemployment rate to increase to 4.3%.

by Calculated Risk on 9/04/2025 03:37:00 PM

From the Las Vegas Visitor Authority: July 2025 Las Vegas Visitor Statistics

Slower tourism trends of recent months continued in July as the destination saw a ‐12% YoY decline in visitation, hosting approximately 3.1M visitors.

The convention segment saw a YoY increase of 10.7% for the month, reflecting in part a scheduling nuance of the World Market Center's summer show (38k attendees) which appeared in July's tally this year; last year the show straddled Jul and Aug and showed up in 2024's August tallies.

Hotel occupancy of 76.1% (down ‐7.6 pts) and ADR of $155 (‐3.4% YoY) translated to monthly RevPAR of $118 (‐12.1% YoY).
emphasis added

Click on graph for larger image.

The first graph shows visitor traffic for 2019 (Black), 2020 (dark blue), 2021 (light blue), 2022 (light orange), 2023 (orange), 2024 (dark orange) and 2025 (red).

Visitor traffic was down 12.0% compared to last July.  Visitor traffic was down 16.2% compared to June 2019.

Year-to-date (YTD) visitor traffic is down 8.8% compared to the same period in 2019.

The second graph shows convention traffic.

Convention traffic was up 10.7% compared to July 2024 and down 44.2% compared to July 2019.  

YTD convention traffic is down 13.2% compared to 2019.