US: Jobless claims and Philly Fed survey in focus - BBH

The US reports weekly initial jobless claims in addition to the Philly Fed survey which are going to be the key economic releases for today’s session, according to analysts at BBH.  

Key Quotes

“Claims happen to be for the week that the monthly BLS survey is taken.  However, this time series is being skewed by the powerful storms that have hit in recent weeks.  The noise to signal ratio is high and most likely will not have much impact.  The Philly Fed survey for September will be interesting, but Yellen acknowledged yesterday what investors have accepted.  The storms will reduce Q3 growth.”  

“Our back of the envelope calculation suggested the hit could be as much as one percentage point.  Given that the US economy was growing above trend growth, it can fall back to it (which the Fed estimates the long-run growth is 1.8%).  Leading economic indicators for August are expected to rise 0.3%.  The monthly increase averaged 0.2% in 2016 and 0.4% thus far this year.  The diffusion, how many indicators improved and how many deteriorated will likely confirm Yellen's assessment that the underlying economy remains strong.”