Yahoo Finance's Julie Hyman and Brian Sozzi break down the latest economic data, including the Fed's preferred inflation gauge and weekly jobless claims.

Video Transcript

JULIE HYMAN: And here are the three things that you need to know on this Thursday morning. We start with a bunch of economic data that we got earlier today and sort of a mixed bag of data. First of all, we got PCE, the Personal Consumption Expenditures. This is the preferred inflation gauge of the Federal Reserve, and it came in essentially in line with estimates, a year over year increase of 5.4% versus the estimate for a gain of 5 and 1/2%. So, pretty close here. That's the deflator, again, the number that the Fed watches. If you look at the month over month numbers as well, that was bang in line with estimates. Did want to mention the one thing that really stood out here to me in these numbers-- and this, by the way, is for the month of February, so a little more dated here on the inflation front-- personal spending up 0.2% on the month, but real personal spending-- that is, if you adjust for inflation-- was down 4/10 of 1%. In other words, the spending in the United States was not outpacing inflation. So very interesting there and something that we want to continue to watch. Something else that we are watching, Brian Sozzi, especially ahead of tomorrow's big jobs report, we got initial jobless claims ticking up a little bit, but still at a historically low level of 202,000. The estimate, as you see there, for 196,000. It also compares with a revised number of 188,000 for the prior week. And again, all of this ahead of the March jobs report, which comes out tomorrow morning. We will be here bright and early for that number. 490,000 is the estimate for that overall number. We're going to be watching that wage number very carefully as well. So we have all this data. What do we make of it, Brian Sozzi? BRIAN SOZZI: Well, what do they say, Julie? Not all heroes wear capes. And to that end, today, my hero is Aneta Markowska, the chief economist at Jefferies, because she's saying, quote, "We believe it's premature to start the recession countdown. There you have Aneta right there with that commentary. Of course, friend of the show. Really enjoy her work. And she goes at length to describe that recessions are usually periods of what she calls corporate restructuring triggered by significant margin compression. Now, Aneta notes that margins have started to come back off their peak. We have heard a little bit of this commentary from the likes of a Restoration Hardware this week. Heard a little bit, I think, this morning from a Tempur-Sealy, the bedware maker. We'll talk more about that later. But still, Aneta making a very good point here. Look at profit margins. Profit margins are, in fact, off their peak. But they're not exactly plunging. And a lot of companies are still having success pushing through price increases. To me, that's not recessionary. And there you have that chart right there. Profit margins off their peak, but still, in the grand scheme of things, pretty good. JULIE HYMAN: Yeah, and we've also gotten a lot of pushback against the idea that the people have gotten a recessionary signal from the yield curve as well. We're going to talk about that later in the show.