10 Things You Need To Know: February 6, 2024
Key data releases this week include: ISM Services (Mon), consumer credit (Wed), and CPI seasonal factor revisions (Fri).
Bloomberg
February 5, 2024
The Institute for Supply Management’s overall gauge of services increased 2.9 points, the biggest gain in a year, to 53.4 last month. The latest reading exceeded all estimates in a survey of economists. The group’s metric of prices paid for materials jumped 7.3 points, the most since 2012, to 64 in January.
Haver
February 2, 2024
Nonfarm payrolls increased 353,000 (1.9% y/y) in January following a 333,000 December increase and a 182,000 rise in November. Expectations had been for a 175,000 rise in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. The average rise of 289,000 during the last three months is the strongest since March of last year. Average hourly earnings jumped 0.6% last month (4.5% y/y).
Haver
January 30, 2024
U.S. house prices rose 0.3% m/m in November after unrevised rises of 0.3% in October, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) House Price Index. The November reading was the 11th consecutive monthly rise to the highest index level on record (417.36). The year-on-year rate of increase accelerated to 6.6% in November, the highest since December 2022.
Financial Times
February 1, 2024
Inflation in the eurozone declined to 2.8% last month, from 2.9% in December. Core inflation came down less than economists had expected to 3.3%, from 3.4% a month earlier.
Capital Economics
January 31, 2024
China’s economy has regained some strength recently. We expect this to continue over the coming months, on the back of support from fiscal policy and a further pick-up in household spending. But with property construction likely to continue to decline and exports set to do the same, the recovery will lack momentum. Growth will have dropped below 4% by the end of the year.
Barron’s
February 5, 2024
The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s GDPNow estimate for first-quarter gross domestic product is running at a 4.2% annual pace.
Capital Economics
January 31, 2024
We now expect the first Fed rate cut to come at the early-May FOMC meeting rather than in mid-March, with the Fed cutting rates by 25bp at each meeting after that, for a cumulative loosening of 150bp this year. We still expect the fed funds rate to fall to a low of between 3.00% and 3.25% in the first half of 2025.
Bloomberg
February 5, 2024
Senators released a bipartisan deal Sunday to impose new US immigration restrictions and unlock billions of dollars in Ukraine aid. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and his Republican counterpart Mitch McConnell both back the $118.3 billion compromise. The first procedural vote on the measure will be on Wednesday. However, GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump vehemently opposes it, as do many House conservatives.
Bloomberg
January 30, 2024
The IMF expects the world economy will grow 3.1% this year, up from its October forecast of 2.9%. The upgrade follows better-than-expected growth in the US and China’s latest fiscal support measures. “The global economy continues to display remarkable resilience, and we are now in the final descent toward a soft landing with inflation declining steadily and growth holding up,” IMF Chief Economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas said in a briefing.