by Calculated Risk on 11/22/2015 07:45:00 PM

An excerpt from a Tim Duy piece at Fed Watch: Mission Accomplished

Bottom Line: The Fed is set to declare “Mission Accomplished” at the next FOMC meeting. Indeed, many policymakers have already said as much. Absent a very significant change in the outlook, failure to hike rates in December would renew the barrage of criticism regarding their communications strategy that prompted them to highlight the December meeting in their last statement. Once they have communicated their intentions for subsequent rate hikes, they will turn their attention to the issue of normalizing the balance sheet. Even though officials have not committed to a specific path, I am working with a baseline of 100bp of tightening between now and next December, or roughly 25bp every other meeting. I expect that by the second quarter of next year they will begin communicating the fate of the balance sheet. Whether they should hike or not remains a separate issue. Over the next twelve months we will learn the extent of which the Federal Reserve can resist the global downward pull of interest rates. Other central banks have been less-than-successful in their efforts to pull off of the zero bound – not exactly a hopeful precedent.

Monday:
• At 8:30 AM ET, the Chicago Fed National Activity Index for October. This is a composite index of other data.

• At 10:00 AM, Existing Home Sales for October from the National Association of Realtors (NAR). The consensus is for 5.41 million SAAR, down from 5.55 million in September. Economist Tom Lawler estimates the NAR will report sales of 5.33 million SAAR.

Weekend:
• Schedule for Week of November 22, 2015

From CNBC: Pre-Market Data and Bloomberg futures: currently S&P futures are up 5 and DOW futures are up 40 (fair value).

Oil prices were up over the last week with WTI futures at $41.59 per barrel and Brent at $44.50 per barrel.  A year ago, WTI was at $75, and Brent was at $77 - so prices are down about 40% year-over-year (It was a year ago that prices were falling sharply).

Here is a graph from Gasbuddy.com for nationwide gasoline prices. Nationally prices are at $2.08 per gallon (down about $0.75 per gallon from a year ago).