Pending Home Sales
June 27 2022 Pending home sales rose 0.7% in May to 99.9 after having declined 4.9% in April and 1.6% in March. Pending home sales are being impacted by the combination of both higher prices and rapidly rising mortgage rates. However, sales are being constrained...
Durable Goods Orders
June 27, 2022 Durable goods orders rose 0.7% in May after climbing 0.4% in April and 0.7% in March. This is the seventh increase in orders in the past eight months. In the past year durable goods orders have risen a steamy 10.6%. Frequently much of the change in...
The Labor Market Has Barely Budged
June 24, 2022 The markets swing daily as the odds of recession rise or fall. Everybody is trying to figure out how high interest rates might need to go to bring inflation back down to the 2.0% mark. Keep in mind that a recession is characterized by declining...
New Home Sales
June 24, 2022 New home sales jumped 10.7% in May to 696 thousand after having shrunk by 12.0% in April The big increase in May on top of an upward revision to the April data paint a somewhat different picture of new home sales. Rather than showing sales dropping...
Initial Unemployment Claims
June 23, 2022 Initial unemployment claims fell 2 thousand in the week ending June 18 to 229 thousand after having declined 1 thousand in the previous week. The level has edged upwards in the past couple of weeks which is consistent with some of the recently...
Existing Home Sales
June 21, 2022 Existing home sales fell 3.4% in May to 5,410 thousand after declining 2.6% in April, 3.0% in March and 8.6% in February, after rising by 6.6% in January. It appears that potential buyers rushed to buy in January before mortgage rates and home prices...
The Fed Finally Gets Serious – Many More Rate Hikes in Store
June 17, 2022 While the Fed believes it can pull off a soft landing, the markets are convinced that a recession is coming. And they are probably right. But when? With core CPI inflation likely to be 5.2% at the end of next year, the 3.8% funds rate that the Fed...
Industrial Production
June 17, 2022 Industrial production rose 0.2% in May after having climbed 1.4% in April after rising 0.5% in March. After four months of strong gains industrial production slowed its rate of ascent in May amidst the fears of what higher interest rates and rapidly...
Housing Starts
June 16, 2022 Housing starts plunged 14.4% in May to 1,549 thousand after having risen 5.5% in April. Clearly, builders are becoming more cautious. Builders confidence has declined in the past several months as rising home prices and rapidly rising mortgage rates...
Homebuilder Confidence
June 15, 2022 Homebuilder confidence fell 2 points in June to 67 after having declined 8 points in May, 2 points in April, 2 points in March, 2 in February, and 1 point in January. That is six consecutive declines in this series which peaked at 84 in December. ...
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