One theme that kept coming up in compiling the Orange Book (NI ORANGEBOOK <go>) during the latest earning season is economic recovery. Turned out that an earning transcript based index on the theme tracks /leads/ corroborate the signal from ISM manufacturing new orders index.

Another salient observation from earning calls is that an inflation-index constructed based on then leads cpi, and says the tariff shock from last year is truly — wait for it—transitory.

Finally, as I mentioned before, the earning calls are suggesting that firms are not hiring.

Putting the dots together —accelerating activity + firms not hiring = big labor productivity acceleration.

But of course these are all before Iran War. How that changed the outlook— until the next Orange Book.