None of four US recession gauges flashed an alarm as of Nov. 5, according to figures from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis and the US Labor Department. The absence of an alarm applied to each of the measures in the group.
The Treasury yield spread was positive, while the Sahm rule stood below its recession signal level. Unemployment was slightly above its one-year low, and initial jobless claims matched theirs. Those comparisons placed unemployment above its recent minimum and claims at that minimum.
The spread between 10-year and two-year Treasury yields stood at positive 0.38 percentage point, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis figures showed. The spread turns negative when the 10-year yield falls below the two-year yield. The positive reading therefore put the longer-term yield above the shorter-term yield.
Zero is the dividing line between a positive and an inverted yield curve, a comparison of Treasury yields at different maturities. The curve had spent no days inverted over the preceding two years. It had therefore remained outside inverted territory throughout that period.
The Sahm rule stood at 0.00 percentage point, below the signal threshold of more than 0.5 percentage point, according to the central bank's figures. Its reading did not cross the boundary used for that recession signal.
The rule compares three-month average unemployment with its lowest three-month average over the past year. Readings above 0.5 percentage point have historically coincided with the start of a recession.
The unemployment rate stood at 4.2%, up 0.1 percentage point from its one-year low, the US Labor Department figures showed. No numerical alarm threshold was available for this gauge. The comparison showed how far the rate stood above its low, without specifying a numerical boundary for an alarm.
The four-week average of initial jobless claims stood at 195,000, unchanged from its one-year low, the department's figures showed. No numerical alarm threshold was available for this measure either. Its comparison with the low showed no increase.
All four measures carried a green designation as of the reference date. The yield spread and Sahm rule had explicit numerical boundaries, while the unemployment and claims readings included comparisons with their one-year lows. The green designations thus accompanied different types of numerical comparisons across the measures.
The readings describe where the four gauges stood on Nov. 5. They do not establish whether a recession will follow or whether the economy has avoided one.