Oil to Natural Gas Price Ratio

Lots of discussion with a few members of the commentariat at Calculated Risk regarding the extreme nature of the price ratio between oil and natural gas so I decided to hunt up some data and see just what we were talking about.



The price behavior on a linear plot over the same time.



...and on a log plot due to the disparity of oil and gas when displayed on a common axis.


Data source:
EIA time series US Energy Information Administration

Federal Receipts - Federal Expenditures: 3Q2009 Update

Here without much commentary is the 3Q2009 update using the St. Louis Fed FRED data from FGRECPT and FGEXPND, which are data series for the seasonally adjusted annualized rate(SAAR) by quarter.

Marketable Treasury Debt Maturity - Update

Well it looks like the boys and girls in the US Treasury have been busy pushing out the curve...the front quarter rollover was reduced by a whopping 20.8% while the front six months cumulative rollover dropped 5.5%. All this while the total marketable debt outstanding increased 3.4%...

Which begs the question, who is buying all the interest rate risk? The scuttlebutt I have read is that foreign holders are moving to shorter durations - anyone heard different with sources?


Data Source:US Treasury Dec 2009 MSPD

Previous post on rollover:Marketable Debt Rollover 3Q 2009

3rd Quarter State Sales & Gross Receipts Taxes

Well, the US Census Bureau released the data for state tax income, and I broke out the sales and gross receipts taxes to see how that showed aggregate economic activity performing.

On a year over year basis for the 3rd Qtr, state sales and gross receipts taxes were down -6.7%, and on a rolling 4 Qtr basis the year over year amount is down -7.6%.

While the 3rd Qtr is down from the 2nd Qtr, this is typically the case and the amount appears to be in the midrange of the -3% to -7% seen at -4.9%.

(If I get the chance I will update later with some additional data going back to 1988 - have to help my lovely wife pack for the trip home).

Data:
Quarterly Summary of State and Local Government Tax Revenue

Year Over Year Changes in UEMPMED

So how is the "recoveryless recovery" (seen written in all seriousness, can't make that up!) treating the hapless jobseeker now that we are seeing a decline in new claims?

Well, as of the November, 2009 data point not all that well. I decided to take a look at the year over year changes in the median duration of unemployment (UEMPMED). I chose that series over the Mean Duration (UEMPMEAN) so as to limit the impact of outliers and the pre-Great Recession chronically unemployed on the number.

What we are looking at is the amount of time in weeks in which 50% of the people move off of the UE rolls...and the amount of time required is accelerating through November on a year over year basis.

Data source:

St Louis Fed FRED: UEMPMED

Industrial Capacity: Continuing Decline

We had another increase in industrial capacity utilization in the latest stats from the Fed, while we experienced the largest year over year percent decline in the data series going back to 1967 (so the year over year changes begin in 1968).

The industrial capacity also declined on a month over month basis for the eleventh consecutive month.

Data source:

FED Industrial Capacity data download

Rolling 12 Month Total - UE Final Payments

This is another case where the data had to be copy-pasted into a .csv and then imported into a spreadsheet to make the plot...it is the 12 month rolling total number of final UE benefit payment recipients, i.e. folks who have exhausted their standard 26 weeks of unemployment benefits over the previous year.

What struck me was the change in character of the peak count curve over time - what is quite a sharp peak after the first recession in the '70's (recall it is a twelve month total, so it will lag) becomes a somewhat broader peak in the double dip recession of the '80's, then it changes character significantly in the '90's recession becoming a much blunter and broader peak - and the final transformation into a plateau after the first recession of the '00's (double oughts?).

The question being, should the progression continue as the changes in the curve shape reflect broad changes in the makeup of the US economy and work force? And would that mean an even broader plateau at a much higher level now?