U.S. Reopening Monitor Update - October 12, 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.

Readings for our U.S. Reopening Monitor remained positive last week and new COVID-19 cases fell on a week-over-week (W/W) basis for the second week in a row. Improvement continues in the underlying high frequency economic data for the labor market, air travel and dining but consumer sentiment, transit and retail sales took a step back. The Atlanta and New York Fed’s estimate of 3Q GDP growth are 35.2% and 14.1%, respectively.

A 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.

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.

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

Confirmed COVID cases have risen on a W/W basis for fourteen straight weeks in the Eurozone with new restrictions enacted in an attempt to slow the pace. France and the U.K. hit an all-time high weekly infection pace.

The U.K. pace of infections increased for the sixth week in a row with pub closures and local lockdowns being implemented.

Japan posted its second straight week of increases in the pace of infections.

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.