(Bloomberg) -- In just a matter of weeks the coronavirus pandemic slammed the brakes on the U.S. economy, leaving a streak of shuttered businesses and millions of jobless Americans in its wake.
A U.S. recession is all but officially underway. The speed at which the economy has ground to a halt has rendered much of the traditional economic data -- typically released with a lag of about a month -- outdated before it’s even published.
To fill the gap, Bloomberg economists Tom Orlik and Eliza Winger created a dashboard of high frequency, alternative and market-based indicators. Right now, the dashboard shows the depths of the downturn. In the weeks ahead -- as states move toward re-opening -- it should capture the strength of the recovery.
Many of the dashboard’s data points signal a deepening contraction. Others have shown slight improvement, flagging early hopes that some parts of the economy may be bottoming out.
The economic downturn was self-induced through government-ordered shutdowns aimed at protecting lives and mitigating the virus. That makes the number of new Covid-19 cases all the more important. While that figure has eased in consecutive weeks, it remains extremely elevated, and limited testing means the count almost certainly understates the true spread of the disease.
Dashboard Highlights
- Filings for unemployment benefits (or initial jobless claims) remain extremely high but have fallen for three straight weeks -- suggesting the breakneck pace of layoffs may be slowing. Unlike many government reports, jobless claims are reported with just a one-week lag. More than 26 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits in just five weeks, essentially wiping out all of the jobs created since the last recession.
- The Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index, a weekly confidence measure, has declined in 11 of the last 12 weeks. The measure has plummeted from 67.3 in the last week of January to 41.4, the steepest drop in more than three decades worth of data.
- Crushed by the Saudi-Russia price war in March and government shutdowns that have kept Americans off the roads, oil prices have crumbled in recent weeks. The active oil rig count slumped 43% since the first two weeks of January, according to Baker Hughes data.
- The housing market hasn’t been spared either: Home sales are already down and are expected to crater in the coming months. A more real-time indicator, mortgage applications for home purchases, has fallen 34% since the first two weeks of the year.
- Data from OpenTable, a restaurant-booking app, offers insight into the devastating blow faced by the restaurant industry: Restaurant bookings have dropped 100% from last year.
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