None of four standard US recession gauges was flashing an alarm as of Nov. 2, according to figures from the St. Louis Fed and the US Labor Department.
The Treasury yield spread was positive, and the Sahm rule stood below its recession signal level. Unemployment and initial jobless claims were at or close to their lowest levels over the past year.
The gap between 10-year and two-year Treasury yields was positive at 0.32 percentage point. The yield curve, which compares those two yields, crosses its inversion threshold when that spread falls below zero.
The spread therefore stood 0.32 percentage point above the dividing line between a positive and an inverted curve. It had spent no days inverted over the preceding two years.
The Sahm rule stood at 0.00, against a recession signal threshold above 0.5 percentage point. The gauge measures how far three-month average unemployment has risen above its lowest three-month average over the past year.
A reading above that threshold has historically coincided with the start of a recession. The current reading was half a percentage point below 0.5, with no increase under the rule's comparison of three-month averages.
The unemployment rate was 4.2%, just 0.1 percentage point above its one-year low. That comparison concerns the unemployment rate itself, while the Sahm rule uses averages over three months.
No numerical recession alarm threshold was available for the unemployment rate. The 0.1-percentage-point gap measures its distance from the past year's low, rather than its distance from a specified alarm level.
The four-week average of initial jobless claims stood at 197,000, unchanged in percentage terms from its one-year low. Claims therefore showed no increase against that benchmark in the Nov. 2 assessment.
No numerical recession alarm threshold was available for the claims average either. Its comparison with the one-year low placed it at the bottom of that range, but did not establish a separate level that would trigger an alarm.
All four gauges carried a green designation at the reference date. The yield spread and Sahm rule had explicit dividing lines, while the unemployment and claims comparisons showed how far each stood above its annual low.
The readings describe where the four gauges stood on Nov. 2. They do not establish whether a recession will follow, or whether the United States has avoided one.