economic indicators I am watching

On Monday we got the March Purchasing Managers Index, and it improved a little from 52.4 to 53.4. But the 12 month moving average dropped for the 11th month in a row. There has been 18 times since 1949, when this index was created, when you have had a least 6 declines in the 12 month moving average in a row, and 11 of them lead to a recession.

Yesterday we again got good news on Initial Jobless Claims, as it was at 357,000. But this morning we got Non Farm Payrolls for March, and it was a very mixed report. The U-3 unemployment rate dropped from 8.3% to 8.2%, and the U-6 unemployment rate dropped from 14.9% down to 14.5%. But only 120,000 new jobs were created in March, and nearly 88 million Americans are not part of our labor market anymore, which is a new record. BCI did not like this report at all, and dropped from -0.02% to -0.16%.