10 Things You Need To Know: February 28, 2023
Key data releases this week include: durable goods orders (Mon), pending home sales (Mon), FHFA House Price Index (Tue), consumer confidence (Tue), ISM Manufacturing (Wed), and ISM Services (Fri).
Trading Economics
February 21, 2023
Existing home sales in the US which include completed transactions of single-family homes, town homes, condominiums and co-ops declined 0.7% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.0 million in January of 2023, a twelfth straight month of decreases, and compared to forecasts of 4.1 million. It is the lowest reading since October of 2010.
Trading Economics
February 23, 2023
The US economy expanded an annualized 2.7% rate in Q4 2022, slightly below 2.9% in the advance estimate. Consumer spending rose 1.4%, the least since Q1 2022 and below 2.1% in the advance estimate.
Trading Economics
February 24, 2023
The personal consumption expenditure price index rose 0.6 percent month-over-month in January of 2023, the most in seven months and after a 0.2 percent increase in December. Excluding food and energy, the PCE price index advanced 0.6 percent, faster than market expectations of a 0.4 percent rise. The annual rate accelerated to 5.4 percent from an upwardly revised 5.3 percent in December
Trading Economics
February 24, 2023
Personal spending in the US jumped 1.8% month-over-month in January of 2023, rebounding from a downwardly revised 0.1% drop in December and beating market forecasts of a 1.3% rise. It is the biggest increase since March of 2021, in a sign consumer spending started the year on strong footing. Personal income rose by 0.6 percent from a month earlier in January 2023.
Barron’s
February 27, 2023
Excess savings, though somewhat depleted, will continue to fuel spending through at least the first half of this year for the lowest-income households, and through the end of next year for middle-income groups. And the labor market shows almost no signs of cracking, having added more than a half-million new jobs in January alone.
Barron’s
February 27, 2023
Owing to big jumps in the consumer price index from February to June 2022, the change from the level a year ago will be relatively subdued by summer. Assuming the post-Covid inflation trend continues over the next few months, year-over-year CPI growth would recede to 3.29% in June’s data from January’s 6.41%.
Barron’s
February 27, 2023
Economic sanctions have proven they can work in the longer term. Iran’s economy shrank by nearly two-thirds from 2012 to 2020. Russians’ real incomes shrank by 7% in the seven years following 2014, even though Western sanctions then were relatively mild. If Putin wants to drain his country of its last ruble to fight on in Ukraine, he can likely do that for years. But if he wants to return Russia to some hope of prosperity, they will have to negotiate and get sanctions lifted.
Reuters
February 22, 2023
The total nominal amount of global debt declined by $4 trillion in 2022 to below $300 trillion, according to the Institute of International Finance. This marked the first overall decline in seven years
Bloomberg
February 22, 2023
“Inflation is slowing more than the Fed thinks,” Evercore Inc. Vice Chairman Ed Hyman said. He thinks that the Fed should pause its rate-rise regime “and see what they’ve gotten done so far” on inflation. “I see inflation coming down in most places. Unfortunately, it’s not coming down in the most visible places that the Fed looks at like the consumer price index or the PCE. Inflation is going to keep coming down. I think it could undershoot the Fed’s target of 2%.”