by Calculated Risk on 7/06/2020 01:20:00 PM

The second graph is the so-called "scariest job chart" ever. That graph shows the percent job losses for all recessions since WWII.

Joe Weisenthal at Bloomberg asked if I could make a similar graph showing percent permanent job losers.

Click on graph for larger image.

This graph shows permanent job losers as a percent of the pre-recession peak in employment through the June report.

This data is only available back to 1994, so there is only data for three recessions.

As temporary job losses become permanent, the percent of permanent job losers will probably continue to increase for some time.

The second graph shows the job losses from the start of the employment recession, in percentage terms.

The current employment recession is by far the worst recession since WWII in percentage terms, and the worst in terms of the unemployment rate.

by Calculated Risk on 7/06/2020 12:03:00 PM

Black Knight released their Mortgage Monitor report for May today. According to Black Knight, 7.76% of mortgages were delinquent in May, up from 6.45% in April, and up from 3.36% in May 2019. Black Knight also reported that 0.38% of mortgages were in the foreclosure process, down from 0.49% a year ago.

This gives a total of 8.14% delinquent or in foreclosure.

Press Release: Black Knight’s May 2020 Mortgage Monitor

Today, the Data & Analytics division of Black Knight, Inc. (NYSE:BKI) released its latest Mortgage Monitor Report, based upon the company’s industry-leading mortgage performance, housing and public records datasets. As Black Knight Data & Analytics President Ben Graboske explained, despite record-low interest rates and record-high levels of tappable equity – the amount available to homeowners with mortgages to borrow against before reaching a maximum combined loan-to-value ratio of 80% – both the number of cash-out refinances and the volume of equity withdrawn via such loans fell in Q1 2020.

“Tappable equity rose by 8% year-over-year in the first quarter of 2020 to a record high of $6.5 trillion,” said Graboske. “What’s more, with mortgage interest rates hitting record lows, 90% of homeowners with tappable equity now have first lien rates above the prevailing market average. But while Q1 2020 saw overall refinance lending climb to a 7-year high, the number of cash-out refinances, as well as the dollar value of equity withdrawn via refinance, fell for the first time since early 2019. All in, cash-outs accounted for just 42% of refinance loans in the first quarter, roughly half of what was seen at the recent high in Q4 2018 and the lowest such share since Q1 2016. Likewise, the $38.7 billion in equity withdrawn from the market via cash-out refinances was down 8% from the prior quarter. Further, rate lock data – a good indicator of lending activity – suggests the trend is likely to continue, as the cash-out share of refinance activity has continued to fall throughout the second quarter.
emphasis added

Click on graph for larger image.

Here is a graph from the Mortgage Monitor that shows the National Delinquency Rate.

From Black Knight:

• The national delinquency rate jumped again in May, climbing another 1.3 percentage points to its highest level since December 2011

• May’s increase would have been the worst single month ever recorded if it weren’t for the 3.1 percentage point increase in the month prior

• All in, the national delinquency rate of 7.8% is now up 4.5 percentage points from the record low of 3.2% in January 2020

• There are now 4.3 million homeowners past due on their mortgages, including 200,000 currently in foreclosure

• That number has ballooned by more than 2.3 million in recent months after falling below 2 million earlier in the year for the first time since 2005

There is much more in the mortgage monitor.

by Calculated Risk on 7/06/2020 10:05:00 AM

The June ISM Non-manufacturing index was at 57.1%, up from 45.4% in May. The employment index increased to 43.1%, from 31.8%. Note: Above 50 indicates expansion, below 50 contraction.

From the Institute for Supply Management: June 2020 Non-Manufacturing ISM Report On Business®

Economic activity in the non-manufacturing sector grew in June after two consecutive months of contraction, say the nation’s purchasing and supply executives in the latest Non-Manufacturing ISM® Report On Business®.

The report was issued today by Anthony Nieves, CPSM, C.P.M., A.P.P., CFPM, Chair of the Institute for Supply Management® (ISM®) Non-Manufacturing Business Survey Committee: “The NMI® registered 57.1 percent, 11.7 percentage points higher than the May reading of 45.4 percent. This reading represents growth in the non-manufacturing sector after a two-month period of contraction preceded by 122 straight months of expansion. This is the largest single-month percentage-point increase in the NMI® since its debut in 1997. (In April, the index suffered its biggest one-month decrease, a 10.7-percent drop.) The Business Activity Index registered 66 percent, up 25 percentage points from May’s figure of 41 percent. The New Orders Index registered 61.6 percent; 19.7 percentage points higher than the reading of 41.9 percent in May. The Employment Index increased to 43.1 percent; 11.3 percentage points higher than the May reading of 31.8 percent.
emphasis added

by Calculated Risk on 7/06/2020 09:07:00 AM

These indicators are mostly for travel and entertainment - some of the sectors that will probably recover very slowly.

The TSA is providing daily travel numbers.

Click on graph for larger image.

This data shows the daily total traveler throughput from the TSA for 2019 (Blue) and 2020 (Red).

On July 1st there were 626,516 travelers compared to 2,547,889 a year ago.

That is a decline of 75%. There has been a slow steady increase from the bottom, but air travel is still down significantly.

The second graph shows the7 day average of the year-over-year change in diners as tabulated by OpenTable for the US and several selected cities.

Thanks to OpenTable for providing this restaurant data:

This data is updated through July 4, 2020.

This data is "a sample of restaurants on the OpenTable network across all channels: online reservations, phone reservations, and walk-ins. For year-over-year comparisons by day, we compare to the same day of the week from the same week in the previous year."

Note that this data is for "only the restaurants that have chosen to reopen in a given market".

The 7 day average for New York is still off 81%.

Florida is only down 57% YoY, but declining recently.  Note that dining seems to be declining in many areas (probably due to the recent surge in COVID cases).

This data shows domestic box office for each week (red) and the maximum and minimum for the previous four years.  Data is from BoxOfficeMojo through July 2nd.

Note that the data is usually noisy week-to-week and depends on when blockbusters are released.

Movie ticket sales have picked up a slightly from the bottom, but are still under $1 million per week (compared to usually around $300 million per week), and ticket sales have essentially been at zero for fifteen weeks.

Most  movie theaters are closed all across the country, and will probably reopen slowly (probably with limited seating at first).

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

The red line is for 2020, dash light blue is 2019, blue is the median, and black is for 2009 (the worst year probably since the Great Depression for hotels).

2020 was off to a solid start, however, COVID-19 crushed hotel occupancy.  Hotel occupancy was off 38.7% YoY last week.

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

Usually hotel occupancy starts to pick up seasonally in early June. So some of the recent pickup might be seasonal (summer travel).   Note that summer occupancy usually peaks at the end of July or in early August.

This graph, based on weekly data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), shows the year-over-year change in gasoline consumption.

At one point, gasoline consumption was off almost 50% YoY.

As of June 26th, gasoline consumption was only off about 10% YoY (about 90% of normal).

The final graph is from Apple mobility. From Apple: "This data is generated by counting the number of requests made to Apple Maps for directions in select countries/regions, sub-regions, and cities." This is just a general guide - people that regularly commute probably don't ask for directions.

There is also some great data on mobility from the Dallas Fed Mobility and Engagement Index. However the index is set "relative to its weekday-specific average over January–February", and is not seasonally adjusted, so we can't tell if an increase in mobility is due to recovery or just the normal increase in the Spring and Summer.

This data is through July 4th for the United States and several selected cities.

The graph is the running 7 day average to remove the impact of weekends.

IMPORTANT: All data is relative to January 13, 2020. This data is NOT Seasonally Adjusted. People walk and drive more when the weather is nice, so I'm just using the transit data.

According to the Apple data directions requests, public transit in the US is still only about 45% of the January level. It is at 38% in New York, and 49% in Houston (down over the last couple of weeks).

by Calculated Risk on 7/05/2020 07:25:00 PM

Weekend:
• Schedule for Week of July 5, 2020

Monday:
• At 10:00 AM ET, 1the ISM non-Manufacturing Index for June.   The consensus is for a reading of 50.0, up from 45.4.

From CNBC: Pre-Market Data and Bloomberg futures S&P 500 are up 13 and DOW futures are up 95 (fair value).

Oil prices were up over the last week with WTI futures at $40.48 per barrel and Brent at $43.06 barrel.  A year ago, WTI was at $57, and Brent was at $64 - so WTI oil prices are down about 30% year-over-year.

Here is a graph from Gasbuddy.com for nationwide gasoline prices. Nationally prices are at $2.17 per gallon. A year ago prices were at $2.73 per gallon, so gasoline prices are down $0.56 per gallon year-over-year.

by Calculated Risk on 7/05/2020 05:05:00 PM

The US is now conducting over 600,000 tests per day, and that might be enough to allow test-and-trace in some areas. Based on the experience of other countries, the percent positive needs to be well under 5% to really push down new infections, so the US still needs to increase the number of tests per day significantly.

According to Dr. Jha of Harvard's Global Health Institute, the US might need more than 900,000 tests per day.

There were 654,489 test results reported over the last 24 hours.

There were 42,551 positive tests.

Click on graph for larger image.

This data is from the COVID Tracking Project.

The percent positive over the last 24 hours was 6.5% (red line).

For the status of contact tracing by state, check out testandtrace.com.

by Calculated Risk on 7/05/2020 01:42:00 PM

Note: The question on lost income is always since March 13, 2020 - so this percentage will not decline.

From the Census Bureau: Measuring Household Experiences during the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic

The U.S. Census Bureau, in collaboration with five federal agencies, is in a unique position to produce data on the social and economic effects of COVID-19 on American households. The Household Pulse Survey is designed to deploy quickly and efficiently, collecting data to measure household experiences during the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Data will be disseminated in near real-time to inform federal and state response and recovery planning.
…
Data collection for the Household Pulse Survey began on April 23, 2020. The Census Bureau will collect data for 90 days, and release data on a weekly basis.

This will be updated weekly, and the Census Bureau released the recent survey results last Wednesday. This survey asks about Loss in Employment Income, Expected Loss in Employment Income, Food Scarcity, Delayed Medical Care, Housing Insecurity and K-12 Educational Changes.

Click on graph for larger image.

The data was collected between June 18 and June 23, 2020.

Definitions:

Loss in employment income: "Percentage of adults in households where someone had a loss in employment income since March 13, 2020."

This number is since March 13, and hasn't changed significantly.

Expected Loss in Employment Income: "Percentage of adults who expect someone in their household to have a loss in employment income in the next 4 weeks."

32% of households expect a loss in income over the next 4 weeks.   This is down from 38.8% in late April, but up from 31% the previous (the previous week was the reference week for the BLS employment report).   This might suggest the job gains stalled after the data was collected for the June employment report.

Food Scarcity: Percentage of adults in households where there was either sometimes or often not enough to eat in the last 7 days.

About 10% of households report food scarcity.

Delayed Medical Care: "Percentage of adults who delayed getting medical care because of the COVID-19 pandemic in the last 4 weeks."

41.5% of households report they delayed medical care over the last 4 weeks. This has not declined.

Housing Insecurity: "Percentage of adults who missed last month’s rent or mortgage payment, or who have slight or no confidence that their household can pay next month’s rent or mortgage on time."

24.5% of households reported they missed last month's rent or mortgage payment.  This has increased from a low of 22.1% in the survey of June 4th - June 9th.

K-12 Educational Changes: "Percentage of adults in households with children in public or private school, where classes were taught in a distance learning format, or changed in some other way."

Essentially all households with children are reporting were not being taught in a normal format.

by Calculated Risk on 7/04/2020 11:53:00 PM

The US is now conducting over 600,000 tests per day, and that might be enough to allow test-and-trace in some areas. Based on the experience of other countries, the percent positive needs to be well under 5% to really push down new infections, so the US still needs to increase the number of tests per day significantly.

According to Dr. Jha of Harvard's Global Health Institute, the US might need more than 900,000 tests per day.

There were 644,930 test results reported over the last 24 hours.

There were 52,406 positive tests.

Click on graph for larger image.

This data is from the COVID Tracking Project.

The percent positive over the last 24 hours was 8.1% (red line).

For the status of contact tracing by state, check out testandtrace.com.

by Calculated Risk on 7/04/2020 09:45:00 AM

This will be a light week for economic data.

The focus will be on Job Openings and Weekly unemployment claims.

----- Monday, July 6th -----
10:00 AM: the ISM non-Manufacturing Index for June.   The consensus is for a reading of 50.0, up from 45.4.

----- Tuesday, July 7th -----
10:00 AM ET: Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for May from the BLS.

This graph shows job openings (yellow line), hires (purple), Layoff, Discharges and other (red column), and Quits (light blue column) from the JOLTS.

Jobs openings decreased in April to 5.046 million from 6.011 million in March.

The number of job openings (yellow) were down 31% year-over-year, and Quits were down 49% year-over-year.

10:00 AM: Corelogic House Price index for May.

----- Wednesday, July 8th -----
7:00 AM ET: The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) will release the results for the mortgage purchase applications index.

3:00 PM: Consumer Credit from the Federal Reserve.

----- Thursday, July 9th -----
8:30 AM: The initial weekly unemployment claims report will be released. The consensus is for a 1.400 million initial claims, down from 1.427 million the previous week.

----- Friday, July 10th -----
8:30 AM: The Producer Price Index for May from the BLS. The consensus is for a 0.4% increase in PPI, and a 0.1% increase in core PPI.

by Calculated Risk on 7/03/2020 05:23:00 PM

The US is now conducting over 600,000 tests per day, and that might be enough to allow test-and-trace in some areas. Based on the experience of other countries, the percent positive needs to be well under 5% to really push down new infections, so the US still needs to increase the number of tests per day significantly.

According to Dr. Jha of Harvard's Global Health Institute, the US might need more than 900,000 tests per day.

There were 721,054 test results reported over the last 24 hours.

There were 57,562 positive tests. This is a new record.

Click on graph for larger image.

This data is from the COVID Tracking Project.

The percent positive over the last 24 hours was 8.0% (red line).

For the status of contact tracing by state, check out testandtrace.com.