Schedule for Week of December 23, 2018

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas!

The key economic reports this week are November New Home sales, and October Case-Shiller House Prices.

Note: If the government is shutdown, the new home sales report will probably be delayed.

----- Monday, Dec 24th -----
8:30 AM ET: Chicago Fed National Activity Index for November. This is a composite index of other data.

The NYSE and the NASDAQ will close early at 1:00 PM ET.

----- Tuesday, Dec 25th -----
All US markets will be closed in observance of the Christmas Holiday.

----- Wednesday, Dec 26th -----
9:00 AM ET: S&P/Case-Shiller House Price Index for October.

This graph shows the nominal seasonally adjusted National Index, Composite 10 and Composite 20 indexes through the most recent report (the Composite 20 was started in January 2000).

The consensus is for a 5.0% year-over-year increase in the Comp 20 index for October.

10:00 AM: Richmond Fed Survey of Manufacturing Activity for December.

----- Thursday, Dec 27th -----
8:30 AM ET: The initial weekly unemployment claims report will be released.  The consensus is for 217 thousand initial claims, up from 214 thousand the previous week.

9:00 AM: FHFA House Price Index for October 2018. This was originally a GSE only repeat sales, however there is also an expanded index.

10:00 AM: New Home Sales for November from the Census Bureau.

This graph shows New Home Sales since 1963. The dashed line is the sales rate for last month.

The consensus is for 560 thousand SAAR, up from 544 thousand in October.

----- Friday, Dec 28th -----
9:45 AM: Chicago Purchasing Managers Index for December. The consensus is for a reading of 62.4, down from 66.4 in November.

10:00 AM: Pending Home Sales Index for November. The consensus is for a 1.5% increase in the index.