If the government shutdown ends in the near future, there will be a data dump unlike anything we have seen before. The September jobs report at the end of October the same time as retail sales and US imports/exports, etc. The backup in data crunching to fit survey results into seasonally adjusted output may delay the timing of the more [...]
With the federal government shut down, the seasonal adjustment calculations are on holiday with the rest of the statistical agencies. Perhaps that is a positive aspect to the unfolding drama. However, in their absence we are left overanalyzing other major economic parameters. Given the monetary relevance in the weeks after the taper “surprise” and the incoming (potentially) change in Fed [...]
The National Association of Realtors estimated that pending homes sales declined 1.6% in August from July. In July, pending sales slipped 1.4% from June. That makes three consecutive months of slightly lower home sale contracts, mirroring the time frame, as expected, of interest rate behavior. The level of actual new home sales rebounded a bit in August, but the pace [...]
I think that the initial impulse driving FOMC concerns over “too much” monetary stimulus tied closely to three factors: repo markets, junk bonds and housing. Home prices in previous bubble markets have been on fire again, and in no way do those prices reflect actual supply and demand factors (they very much ignore basics like demographic trends). Prices reflected and [...]
While it appears the refi boom that began in early 2011, rising sharply throughout 2012, has tapered fully, the mortgage activity surrounding home purchases is also on the verge of joining that retrenchment. Year-over-year, mortgage applications for purchases are nearly flat and are receding to early 2012 levels. The big banks have begun reducing staff counts, a very convincing signal [...]
I have been more than a little reticent to proclaim the recent downward skew in housing data anything more than volatility. Though I suggested the apparent change looked like an inflection had been reached, and a new slowing tend established, given that volatility in the data it was wise to wait a few months to see if it was durable [...]
We have been following the potential inflection in housing data for nearly five months now, long before taper talk ever began. I still believe that the rapid rise in prices was both the initial cause for the turn in housing construction and the primary reason for talking taper in the first place. Where permits and construction data began to wobble [...]
The FOMC picked up another dissenter in its St. Louis branch, but the real consequences of trying to talk down bubbling, frothy markets are beginning to show up. Like the JGB market, UST volatility is dramatically higher (Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s MOVE index jumped from a record low/complacent 48.87 in May to 84.75 in early June). Perhaps the most [...]
I had a conversation with Joe Calhoun yesterday regarding an uptick in construction activity in Miami and some other places in the Southeast. He mentioned that some of his contacts had in the past few months begun to see a huge increase in the number of bidsheets for construction work that was ready to break ground – some of it [...]
Joe covered the GDP release for Q1 2013 earlier where he noted that: “While on the surface that seems better than the 4th quarter rate of 0.4%, the details were actually worse in many ways.” I wanted to follow up with one of those “worse” features – consumer spending on housing “services”. This is a topic I have covered many [...]
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