None of four U.S. recession gauges flashed an alarm as of Oct. 29, according to figures from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis and the U.S. Labor Department.
All four carried a green classification. The Treasury yield spread and Sahm rule were outside their recession signal thresholds, while unemployment and jobless claims were at or near their one-year lows.
The 10-year minus 2-year Treasury spread stood at a positive 0.37 percentage point in the St. Louis Fed figures. That means the yield on the 10-year Treasury exceeded the yield on the 2-year Treasury.
The spread turns negative when the 10-year yield falls below the 2-year yield, creating an inverted yield curve, meaning the 10-year Treasury yields less than the 2-year. Zero is the dividing line between a positive spread and an inversion.
The curve had been inverted for zero days over the past two years, the central bank's figures showed.
The Sahm rule reading was 0.00 in the central bank's figures, below the supplied recession signal threshold of above 0.5 percentage point. The rule measures how far three-month average unemployment has risen from 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 puts the three-month average unemployment rate at its lowest three-month average over the past year.
The unemployment rate was 4.2%, just 0.1 percentage point above its one-year low, in the Labor Department figures. No separate recession signal threshold was supplied for the unemployment rate.
The four-week average of initial jobless claims was 197,000 in the department's figures. Initial claims count new applications for unemployment benefits, and the four-week average combines those weekly readings.
The claims average was unchanged from its one-year low, with a reported gap of 0%. No recession signal threshold was supplied for this gauge either.
The unemployment and claims gauges both carried green classifications, although their comparisons were with one-year lows, according to the figures. Those comparisons differ from the explicit signal thresholds given for the Treasury spread and Sahm rule.
The four readings describe where the gauges stood on the reference date. They do not establish whether a recession will follow or whether one has been avoided.