RSS Feed by Calculated Risk on 6/16/2012 01:11:00 PM
Saturday, June 16, 2012
Schedule for Week of June 17th
Earlier:
• Summary for Week Ending June 15th
The focus will be on Greece on Sunday. For the US, this week is about the Fed and housing. The key reports are housing starts on Tuesday, and Existing Home Sales on Thursday.
On Wednesday, the FOMC concludes a two day meeting, and there is the possibility of additional policy accommodation.
12:00 PM ET: Election in Greece. Polls close at noon ET on Sunday and the first "safe" results are expected around 2:30 PM ET.
10:00 AM: The June NAHB homebuilder survey. The consensus is for a reading of 29, unchanged from May. Although this index has been increasing lately, any number below 50 still indicates that more builders view sales conditions as poor than good.
8:30 AM: Housing Starts for May. Total housing starts were at 717 thousand (SAAR) in April, up 2.6% from the revised March rate of 699 thousand (SAAR). Note that March was revised up sharply from 654 thousand.
The consensus is for total housing starts to increase to 720,000 (SAAR) in May from 717,000 in April.
10:00 AM ET: Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for April from the BLS. This graph shows job openings (yellow line), hires (purple), Layoff, Discharges and other (red column), and Quits (light blue column) from the JOLTS.
Jobs openings increased in March to 3.737 million, up from 3.565 million in February. The number of job openings (yellow) has generally been trending up, and openings are up about 17% year-over-year compared to March 2011. Quits also increased in March, and quits are now up about 8.5% year-over-year and quits are now at the highest level since 2008. These are voluntary separations and more quits might indicate some improvement in the labor market.
7:00 AM: The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) will release the mortgage purchase applications index. Refinance activity has been increasing sharply, and it appears purchase activity is increasing too.
12:30 PM: FOMC Meeting Announcement. No changes are expected to interest rates, however additional policy accommodation is possible.
2:00 PM: FOMC Forecasts The will include the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) participants' projections of the appropriate target federal funds rate along with the quarterly economic projections.
2:15 PM: Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke holds a press briefing following the FOMC announcement.
During the day: The AIA's Architecture Billings Index for May (a leading indicator for commercial real estate).
8:30 AM: The initial weekly unemployment claims report will be released. The consensus is for claims to decline to 383 thousand from 386 thousand last week.
9:00 AM: The Markit US PMI Manufacturing Index Flash. This is a new release and might provide hints about the ISM PMI for June. The consensus is for a reading of 53.8, down slightly from 53.9 in May.
10:00 AM: Existing Home Sales for May from the National Association of Realtors (NAR). The consensus is for sales of 4.57 million on seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) basis.
Housing economist Tom Lawler is forecasting the NAR will report sales of 4.66 million in May.
A key will be inventory and months-of-supply.
10:00 AM: Philly Fed Survey for June. The consensus is for a reading of 0.5, up from -5.8 last month (above zero indicates expansion).
10:00 AM: FHFA House Price Index for April 2012. This is based on GSE repeat sales and is no longer as closely followed as Case-Shiller (or CoreLogic).
10:00 AM: Conference Board Leading Indicators for May. The consensus is for no changed in this index.
No economic releases scheduled.
