June’s Durable goods orders were down 2.5%, the biggest drop in 5 months, on the back of weak demand for transportation and communication equipment. The Bloomberg consensus forecast stood at -0.6%. Making matters worse, May’s number was revised down to 1.3% from 1.8%. There was some good news in the details at least; Durable good […]
Archive:
Data Release
The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence index fell to 46.6 in July from 49.3. The Present Condition Index fell to 23.4 from an initial reading of 25.0, while the Expectations Index fell to 62.0 compared to an initial reading of 65.5. Weakness in the labor market was likely the primary driver behind these declines. This is […]
The S&P Case Shiller Index rose 0.5% in May, the index’s first monthly gain in three years. But, the index is still down by 17.1% on a year over year basis. 14 of the 20 cities in the index experienced gains with Cleveland leading the pack with an increment of 4.1%, followed by Dallas with […]
New Home Sales rose by 11.0% in June, realizing an annual rate of sales of 384,000 units versus last month’s revised pace of 346,000. This was the index’s largest gain in eight years. New home sales increased in every region, excluding the south. The supply of new homes in June fell to 8.8 from 10.2 […]
The Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment index dipped for the fist time in five months to 66, compared to a market consensus of 65 for July. At the same time the July expectations index increased to 63.2 versus July’s preliminary reading of 60.9. The drivers behind this month’s declines were derived from weakness in the […]
US existing home sales came in above the market consensus, rising 3.6% at an annualized rate of 4.89mn. Single family home sales increased by 2.4%, while condo/coop sales increased 14.0%. The months supply of home also improved moving to 9.4 months, compared to 9.8 in May. The median home price rose 4.1%, but still remains […]
As I anticipated, and explained in my US Week Ahead, initial claims experienced a significant uptick this morning, which will likely be continued next week. In reality, this increment was probably due to a correction in what has been overly optimistic data stemming from erroneous seasonal adjustment factors. Fed Chairman Bernanke in his recent testimony […]
The index of leading indicators was up in June by 0.7%, or slightly above the market consensus of 0.5%. At the same time May’s number was revised up to 1.3% from 1.2%. This is the third consecutive month of gains for the index. In the release the Conference Board was quoted as saying, “The behavior […]
June housing starts came in this morning well above expectations increasing 3.6%, totaling 582K (SAAR) units. Economists has been anticipating 530K. This is the index’s second consecutive month of gains, which could indicate some stabilization for the sector. There were also some positive revisions to April’s and May’s starts numbers. The increase was due to […]
The Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index fell to -7.5 this month compared to -2.2, last month. Looking deeper into the details, the future general activity index remained positive, but declined to 51.9 from 60.1 last month. Further deterioration to this component could indicate continued weakness in in the general business activity index through the beginning of […]