Numbers lining up, for a good 2014

The monthly payroll numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics are out, and they are good.

Most of the following comes from one of the Calculated Risk blog entries for today, which is taken directly from the BLS published report that was released this morning. My thanks to Calculated Risk for putting it in English. BTW, Calculated Risk provides a wealth of economics information, in easily understandable language, with lots of excellent graphs. They post about three or four entries a day.

More than 200,000 increase in payroll. More than 20,000 increase in manufacturing. ISM manufacturing Index is about 56.5, beating the 52.5 point (at which I say it is balanced) for the sixth straight month. The civilian labor force increased, causing the labor participation rate to improve for the first time since Obama took office. The employment-population ratio increased by 0.3 percentage point to 58.6 percent in November, reversing a decline of the same size in the prior month.



None of this should surprise anyone who follows economics on this blog, as I said, back in August, we have begun an upswing, and I predicted then, that it would last for about 18 months.

Everything looks like it is lining up for a good year (2014) in the financial world, and a decent growth in the economy for the same. My personal forecasts remain the same, meaning we are almost 6 months into an 18 month up cycle. I should note, I have never been good at forecasting the length of an upcycle, and 2 out of the last five downturns caught me flat footed. I hope to pay enough attention to this one to have an advanced notice of the next downturn.