by Calculated Risk on 7/17/2012 10:01:00 PM

Wednesday will be another busy day for economic data, but first from Binyamin Appelbaum at the NY Times: Cautious on Growth, Bernanke Offers No Hint of New Action

The Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, said Tuesday that the Fed was seeking greater clarity about the health of the recovery, suggesting that officials were not ready to approve another round of stimulus.
...
Rather than committing to new steps, Mr. Bernanke told the Senate Banking Committee that the decision would turn on the judgment of Fed officials about the pace of job growth in the coming months.

The major issue, he said, is “whether or not there is in fact a sustained recovery going on in the labor market, or are we stuck in the mud?” Mr. Bernanke added a wrinkle, saying the central bank “would certainly want to react against any increase in deflation risk.”

• At 7:00 AM AM ET, the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) will release the mortgage purchase applications index.

• 8:30 AM: Housing Starts for June will be released. The consensus is for total housing starts to increase to 745,000 (SAAR) in June from 708,000 in May.

• At 10:00 AM, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke will testify before the Committee on Financial Services, U.S. House of Representatives. (same report again).


• At 2:00 PM, the Federal Reserve Beige Book will be released.

Also during the day, the AIA's Architecture Billings Index for June will be released (a leading indicator for commercial real estate).

For the July contest: