Hi

More About Quarterly Workforce Indicators The QWI are a set of economic indicators including employment, job creation, earnings, and other measures of employment flows. The QWI are reported based on detailed firm characteristics (geography, industry, age, size) and worker demographics information (sex, age, education, race, ethnicity) and are available tabulated to national, state, metropolitan / micropolitan areas, county, and Workforce Investment Board (WIB) areas. The latest available data in the 2023Q3 release is 2022Q4 for most states. State QWI are released individually on a rolling basis throughout the calendar quarter, with production expected to be completed by the last day of the quarter. In the event that data submission or data quality issues are encountered, QWI production for a state may be delayed or skipped for one or several quarters, until the issue can be resolved. The dot plot thickened Wednesday. Investors probably should have maintained their sense of disbelief. While rates were left unchanged, as expected, the so-called dot-plot indicated that some Federal Reserve policy setters would like to raise overnight interest rates one more time this year from their current level of 5.25%-5.5% through 2024. The Fed's new projections also indicated that policy makers expect to cut rates by far less next year than they thought before. They now forecast, on balance, that the federal-funds rate will be 5.125% at the end of next year, just a quarter point lower than the midpoint of the current range. The futures market has long indicated that traders think rates won't rise again and will fall in 2024. Moreover, rate setters track record is pretty questionable when it comes to carrying through with their pledges on rates. Heard on the Street's resident Fed-watcher, Justin Lahart, explains why the market is right to be skeptical. He says that projecting another rate increase leaves the option open should it be necessary because of a spike in inflation in the coming months. And he notes that projecting an increase takes an awkward and annoying question off of the table: When will the Fed cut? That is the sort of boost the still very strong economy doesn't need at the moment, he says. After days of ignoring multi-year highs on some yields in the Treasury market, though, stock investors decided by the very end of Wednesday's trading session to get spooked. The blue chip Dow Jones Industrial Average suffered only a relatively mild 77 point or 0.22% decline, but the interest rate sensitive Nasdaq Composite had a steeper tumble, closing down 1.53%, near its lows of the day. Here's what else Heard on the Street was watching: Mexican beer is having a moment in the U.S., but don't forget its potential elsewhere—including Mexico itself. That was one of the key messages hammered home by global beer giant Anheuser-Busch InBev at an investor event this week. Having been hit hard this year by the Bud Light controversy, they chose to host the event in Mexico City. The company, which accounts for around one of four beers sold worldwide, used Mexico as a showcase of its global strategy and footprint. AB InBev has quite a lot happening around the world beyond just last spring's Bud Light woes. You wouldn't necessarily know that from its stock price, though. While it is significantly above the lows it hit in early June, the shares are still around 18% lower than at the end of March. Investors might do well to take the more global perspective that the company is trying to get across. Amazon is hardly getting out of the hardware business. In fact, Alexa even seems to be getting a bit of a promotion. The tech giant held its annual fall device event on Wednesday. It came about 10 months after The Wall Street Journal reported that Amazon's hardware business was under scrutiny by the company's higher-ups looking for areas to cut costs. Still, the slimmed-down team has kept busy. At least 10 new devices were introduced Wednesday, including a generative AI powered Alexa. The true payoff for Amazon will still come from bringing GenAI deeper into the cloud business, which now generates more than $85 billion a year in revenue and the bulk of the company's profits. The company's annual cloud event known as AWS Re:Invent in late November will likely prove key; analysts are expecting a wide array of AI-related announcements that could help Amazon close its perceived gap with Microsoft and Google. A more chatty Alexa might just be a warm-up act.