by Calculated Risk on 12/21/2021 07:45:00 PM

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

• At 8:30 AM, Gross Domestic Product, 3rd quarter 2021 (Third estimate). The second estimate of GDP was 2.1%.

• Also at 8:30 AM, Chicago Fed National Activity Index for November. This is a composite index of other data.

• At 10:00 AM, Existing Home Sales for November from the National Association of Realtors (NAR). The consensus is for 6.20 million SAAR, down from 6.34 million. Housing economist Tom Lawler expects the NAR to report sales of 6.45 million SAAR for November.

From CR on COVID (mostly focus on hospitalizations and deaths, although new cases are rising rapidly):

The CDC is the source for all data.

COVID Metrics
	Today	Week Ago	Goal
Percent fully Vaccinated	61.6%	---	≥70.0%1
Fully Vaccinated (millions)	204.6	---	≥2321
New Cases per Day3🚩	149,331	119,281	≤5,0002
Hospitalized3🚩	60,907	58,452	≤3,0002
Deaths per Day3🚩	1,188	1,148	≤502
1 Minimum to achieve "herd immunity" (estimated between 70% and 85%). 2my goals to stop daily posts, 37-day average for Cases, Currently Hospitalized, and Deaths 🚩 Increasing 7-day average week-over-week for Cases, Hospitalized, and Deaths ✅ Goal met.

Click on graph for larger image.

This graph shows the daily (columns) and 7-day average (line) of cases reported.

The scale might change soon (almost record number of new cases reported today).