Economic Insights – February 2016

The recent turmoil in the equity markets would make more sense if the U.S. economy was headed for recession. But the economic data doesn’t support that scenario.

Although initial jobless claims have trended up recently, plugging recent reports into our models suggests payrolls are still growing at about a 200,000 monthly rate, not even close to a recession. Meanwhile, existing home sales surged in December and manufacturing excluding automobiles achieved a 0.1 percent gain.

As we’ll explain, it looks like the final report for real .....