Data of the Day: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

The morning's releases picked up where yesterday's sunnier than expected data left off. In a big way in terms of housing starts:



Permits were a little soft, however:


Then, as the morning progressed, those familiar (of late) clouds began forming.

After a positive blip in November, industrial production resumed its downward trend in December:


And to top the morning off, in a most negative way, the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Report (JOLTS) wasn't pretty. Remember, I keep saying the consumer is the glue presently holding things together, thus, we watch labor closely. While the number of job opening is still healthy, in economics it's about trend and rate of change.

US Job Openings (grey areas denote recessions; top panel captures total, bottom captures year-over-year change):