Key US data events reviewed - Nomura

Analysts at Nomura offered their reviews for the US data.

Key Quotes:

"Review Trade balance: The trade deficit widened to $53.1bn in December from $50.4bn in November, which is a wider trade gap than both our and consensus expectations (Nomura: $51.2bn deficit, consensus: $52.1bn deficit).

Goods exports increased 2.5% mo-m, modestly weaker than the advance estimate by the Census Bureau, while goods imports rose strongly by 2.9% and outpaced the growth in goods exports. Exports of services rose 0.2% m-o-m, with a firm 0.6% increase in services imports.

GDP tracking update: Relative to what the BEA had assumed, the December trade balance indicates that both exports and imports fell short of the BEA’s expectations with a muted impact on net exports. As a result, our Q4 GDP tracking estimate remains unchanged at 2.5% q-o-q saar.

However, the monthly profile of service imports suggests a higher jumping off point for Q1, implying a higher quarterly imports growth in Q1 and thus, more drag from net exports than our previous estimate. Consequently, we lowered our Q1 GDP tracking estimate 0.1pp to 2.4%. JOLTS: Job openings fell 167k to 5811k in December, from an upwardly revised 5978k (previously 5879k), bringing the job openings rate down 0.1pp to 3.8%.

Professional & business services, retail trade and construction job openings drove much of the decline. However, the private industry quits rate increased 0.1pp to 2.5%, consistent with continued labor market strength, while the private layoffs & discharges rate declined 0.1pp to 1.2%.

Overall, labor demand has slowed somewhat over the past few months after picking up through mid-2017. However, the labor market has continued to add jobs at a solid pace, as reflected in January’s employment report from the BLS which indicated a 200k gain in nonfarm payroll employment."