U.S. Reopening Monitor Update - August 24, 2020

The Stone Investment Partners’ U.S. Reopening Monitor was designed to provide a dashboard of high frequency and non-traditional data to gauge the pace and strength of U.S. economic activity as business restarts following the COVID-19 lockdown. The dashboard consists of three main indicator groups: healthcare, economic and financial market. This guide will provide the details behind each of the indicators within the groups. Initial and continuing jobless claims are releases with a one- and two-week lag respectively. Data marked with an asterisk (*) denotes that the indicator was either not yet available or not published by the underlying source that week. The data marked in green indicates that the measurement improved on a week-over-week basis, while red reflects week-over-week deterioration.

Another way to visualize the data is to look at the number of factors in the monitor improving or deteriorating on a week-over-week basis.

Readings for our U.S. Reopening Monitor were fairly stable last week and initial readings on new COVID-19 cases have now fallen on a week-over-week (W/W) basis for five weeks in a row with the uptick in infections that began in June likely having peaked. Improvement is showing up in the underlying high frequency economic data for restaurants and retail sales. In addition, the week before last saw the largest number of airline passengers since the pandemic began. The August Markit PMI data for manufacturing and services were much stronger than the consensus expected which reinforces our forecast of improved economic momentum over the coming weeks.

Though this monitor focuses on the U.S., it is worth highlighting the spike in COVID infections in other parts of the world.

The Guide to the U.S. Reopening Monitor is linked here.

The PDF version of the weekly update to the U.S. Reopening Monitor is linked here.