When it comes to the state of the US economy, it is all about surveys. On Friday we got the BLS' establishment and household surveys, both massively revised and seasonally-adjusted, meant to estimate the state of the US job market. Supposedly they were "unambiguously good." Here, on the other hand, is Evercore ISI with its Company and State Tax Receipt surveys. The verdict, looking at what is happening at both the corporate and state level, and especially the energy-producing tax receipt level which just fell off a cliff, is that "the US Economy is not taking off."
From Evercore ISI:
Our Company Survey Diffusion Index (CSDI) rose from -4.1% to -3.5% this week. Breadth has been weak across industries, but recent industrial data is a little better. The softness in breadth has frequently been a lead indicator of the broad Company Surveys and suggests we are not getting a breakout in U.S. growth. The weakness in breadth in our Company Surveys has generally correlated with low levels of yield on the 10-year treasury.
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Our survey of overall tax receipts moderated this month, moving down from 53.5 to 47.1, driven exclusively by softness from energy producing states.
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And the worst news for the US economy, at least the real US economy, not that which is based on central-bank rigging of "markets" and "seasonally-adjusted", "revised" employment data:
Overall receipts in energy producing states declined from 62.5 to 37.5, their largest 1 month decline since August 2006, while overall receipts in nonenergy producing states were up slightly from 49.4 to 51.5.
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Or, as CNBC would again say, "unambiguously good."
Source: Evercore ISIS
