The retail sales report was released today and it showed not only a strong (and much better than expected) month over month gain, but for the first time since August of 2008 the year over year sales are also higher. This is very good news, as it appears that the consumer has at the very least bottomed for the recession and may be starting to increase spending again.
commerce department report
Also today, consumer sentiment was released, again to a much higher number than October and greater than expectations. This is a leading indicator and bodes well for the recovery to continue (although sentiment in general is still at low levels overall).
Finally in good news today was the business inventories report, which showed that inventories rose, but at the same time the inventories to sales ration shrank (another good indicator).
The above are great news for the recovery going forward and coupled with the "relatively good" BLS jobs report that came out last Friday and the continuing downward moving 4-week moving average of initial jobless claims leads me to believe we will see a positive jobs creation number in December and a positive revision to the November report.
Now to the bad news. First, although some see this report on import prices as a positive, it could be viewed as a negative should this start a trend and cause the Fed concerns on inflationary pressures resulting from a weaker dollar (which has strengthened some this month already).
Second, Paul Krugman today brings up a good point regarding the recovery in employment (or lack thereof). The problem Krugman cites, which is one I have commented on before, is that the job creation needed to approach the previous peak in employment will take years even at a very high pace of job creation. On the other hand, forecasting job creation more than a few months ahead is a fool's game.