Schedule for Week of August 29, 2021

The key report this week is the August employment report on Friday.

Other key indicators include the August ISM manufacturing and services indexes, August auto sales, Case-Shiller house prices for June, and the July trade deficit.

----- Monday, August 30th -----
10:00 AM: Pending Home Sales Index for July. The consensus is for a 0.4% increase in the index.

10:30 AM: Dallas Fed Survey of Manufacturing Activity for August. This is the last of the regional Fed manufacturing surveys for August.

----- Tuesday, August 31st -----
9:00 AM: S&P/Case-Shiller House Price Index for June.

This graph shows the year-over-year change in the 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 18.6% year-over-year increase in the Comp 20 index for June.

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

9:45 AM: Chicago Purchasing Managers Index for August.

----- Wednesday, September 1st -----
7:00 AM ET: The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) will release the results for the mortgage purchase applications index.

8:15 AM: The ADP Employment Report for August. This report is for private payrolls only (no government). The consensus is for 638,000 payroll jobs added in August, up from 330,000 added in July.

10:00 AM: ISM Manufacturing Index for August. The consensus is for the ISM to be at 58.5, down from 59.5 in July.

10:00 AM: Construction Spending for July. The consensus is for a 0.3% increase in construction spending.

Late: Light vehicle sales for August. The consensus is for light vehicle sales to be 15.0 million SAAR in August, up from 14.75 million in July (Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate).

This graph shows light vehicle sales since the BEA started keeping data in 1967. The dashed line is the current sales rate.

----- Thursday, September 2nd -----
8:30 AM: The initial weekly unemployment claims report will be released.  The consensus is for a decrease slightly to 350 thousand from 353 thousand last week.

8:30 AM: Trade Balance report for July from the Census Bureau.

This graph shows the U.S. trade deficit, with and without petroleum, through the most recent report. The blue line is the total deficit, and the black line is the petroleum deficit, and the red line is the trade deficit ex-petroleum products.

The consensus is for the U.S. trade deficit to be at $70.9 billion in July, from $75.7 billion in June.

----- Friday, September 3rd -----
8:30 AM: Employment Report for August.   The consensus is for 728 thousand jobs added, and for the unemployment rate to decrease to 5.2%.

There were 943 thousand jobs added in July, and the unemployment rate was at 5.4%.

This graph shows the job losses from the start of the employment recession, in percentage terms.

The current employment recession was by far the worst recession since WWII in percentage terms, but currently is not as severe as the worst of the "Great Recession".

10:00 AM: ISM Services Index for August.