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'Chair Powell signals a longer wait, raising the risk of a policy mistake' Ian Shepherdson ow.ly/vjT550RhPhm #PantheonMacro

Amid all the retail sales excitement, I'm just going to note that core sales (ex-autos/gas/food) rose only 1.7% annualized in Q1, less than half the Q4 pace, 3.9%. One good month is not a trend.

'Inflation fundamentals are good; look forwards, not backwards' Ian Shepherdson ow.ly/NuKo50RfVbk #PantheonMacroeconomics

'A dovish hold, as expected; first ECB rate cut coming right up' Claus Vistesen ow.ly/aYLh50ReKCO #PantheonMacro

Feel free to ignore the grim message from the NFIB survey of small firms, if you like. I wouldn't.

Your monthly reminder to take absolutely no notice of the monthly household employment/unemployment/participation data. Save yourself some time. Maybe have some tea. Just don't tell me that any of these numbers did anything interesting.

Ian Shepherdson has called this cycle better than most Harvard University economists.

In the past two weeks both Powell and Waller have said they see no sign of weakening in the labor market. The NFIB survey (latest jobs number for March has just been released) very much begs to differ. The risk of the Fed sleep-walking into a slowdown/recession is rising.

Your occasional reminder that manufacturing accounts for less than 9% of payrolls and only about 11% of GDP. It flatlined last year as consumption boomed, driving up GDP growth, and it could easily strengthen this year as consumption and GDP growth slow.

So that's two questioners saying that housing inflation isn't falling. Which is an odd thing to say, given, you know, the actual data.

Will someone please ask him about this? Because it doesn't look great to me

Yes. Please tell me what that thing is.

About to do Squawk Box with Becky Quick Andrew Ross Sorkin and Joe Kernen live from NY talking US econ/Fed

MNH in MNH

Hope the rent's not too damn high again

Two straight declines in the NFIB measure of small business sentiment, despite the stock market hitting record highs, is not a good sign. I'm increasingly worried about the labor market in the spring and summer.

'Job growth is on the verge of a serious slowdown, perhaps in March' Ian Shepherdson ow.ly/3Vt650QPV48 #PantheonMacro

Whatever the Feb payroll number is today - somewhere between zero and 300K is a fair bet - the NFIB survey is yelling quite loudly that things are about to head south in the spring.

Yup