Durable goods orders surged in March…A bit of front running before the tariffs hit. What does it mean – Companies pushed up orders prior to the tariffs going into effect. Nonfarm payrolls increased by 177,000 in April…Defying post tariff predictions, U.S. employers added 177,000 workers to their payrolls in April. The consensus was 130,000. What does it mean – While March private sector payrolls revised down to 185,000 from 228,000. The private sector shows no sign of a recession. The labor participation rate is also moving in the right direction and ticked up a bit more in April. The U6 unemployment rate, which accounts for unemployed and underemployed workers, decreased to 7.3% from 8.4% over the last two months. GDP was down 0.3%…While overall GDP was down, Core GDP was up over 3%. What does it mean – According to the April 28, 2025, Financial Times article, “Core GDP is the Signal Among all the Noise”. While the headline number gets the press, economists look at what is really being spent and invested. Core GDP is the figures that reflect consumer spending and private investment. Core GDP is calculated by summing real personal consumption expenditures and real private fixed investment expenditures. According to economist Larry Kudlow, “Business fixed investment increased nearly 10 percent at an annual rate in the first quarter,” he said. “And, even better, business equipment and machinery — which is an incredibly important harbinger of productivity, job increases, and real wage hikes — rose an incredible 22.5 percent.” He went on to say, “There’s no recession there.” Q4 productivity was upwardly revised to 1.5% vs a consensus of 1.2%…Q4 unit labor costs were revised down to 2.2% from the advance estimate of 3.0%. What does it mean – America was more productive, and it cost us less to do so. Bottom line, this report shows that both components (productivity and unit labor costs) had the right skew for market sentiment. Productivity was higher than previously reported while unit labor costs (an inflation gauge) were lower than previously reported. Durable goods orders surged 9.2% month-over-month in March…Bolstered by a 139% increase in orders for nondefense aircraft and parts. What does it mean – New orders for transportation equipment surged 27.0% following a 1.2% increase in February. Much of this surge was due to getting in front of upcoming tariffs. New home prices fall…The median sales price decreased 7.5% yr/yr to $403,600, while the average sales price decreased 4.7% to $497,700. What does it mean – While total home sales increased by 7.4% month-over-month in March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 724,000 units from a downwardly revised 674,000, prices are starting to fall as affordability and rising interest rates are affecting the housing markets. Existing Home sales fall to lowest pace since 2009…Sales of previously owned homes in March fell 5.9% from February to 4.02 million units on a seasonally adjusted annualized basis, according to the National Association of Realtors. That’s the slowest March sales pace since 2009.
