10 Things You Need To Know: May 3, 2022
Key data releases this week include: ISM Manufacturing (Mon), JOLTS Jobs Openings (Tue), factory orders (Tue), ISM Services (Wed), FOMC rate decision (Wed), consumer credit (Fri), and nonfarm payrolls (Fri).
Haver
April 28, 2022
U.S. real GDP contracted by 1.4% (SAAR) last quarter following an unrevised 6.9% rise during Q4’21. It was the only quarter of negative growth since the end of the recession in Q2’20. The Action Economics Forecast Survey expected a 1.0% increase. Deterioration in the foreign trade balance subtracted 3.2 percentage points from growth as exports fell 5.9% (+4.1% y/y) and imports jumped 17.7% (11.7% y/y). Inventory liquidation also reduced growth by 0.8 percentage points.
Haver
April 26, 2022
The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) House Price Index increased 2.1% (19.4% y/y) during February, following a rise of 1.6% (18.2% y/y) in January. House prices rose to set a new historical record, owing in part to supply constraints, according to the Agency. It was the largest monthly increase since last April.
Haver
April 29, 2022
Personal consumption expenditures jumped 1.1% during March (9.1% y/y) following a 0.6% February gain, revised from 0.2%. A 0.7% rise had been expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. Adjusted for price inflation, spending increased 0.2% last month (2.3% y/y) after rising 0.1% in February. Personal income rose 0.5% (-11.6% y/y) during March following a 0.7% rise.
Bloomberg
May 2, 2022
China’s aggressive campaign against COVID-19 is having consequences far beyond the country’s stock, bond, and currency markets, disrupting the economies of emerging market countries which are major trading partners. Emerging markets have booked their biggest downturn in two years so far in 2022.
Reuters
April 30, 2022
Russia has backed down on its threat to only make payments on foreign bonds in rubles and has made several late interest payments in US dollars. The fact that Russia had started making dollar bond payments in dollars without using funds frozen in the US was confirmed by a high-ranking US government official.
Barron’s
May 2, 2022
On first glance, this earnings season has been pretty decent. With about 69% of S&P 500 companies having reported through Thursday’s close, first-quarter profits were on pace to grow by more than 10%, as more than three-quarters of companies beat expectations.
Barron’s
May 2, 2022
The reality is that it is going to take a lot of tightening to cool the housing market, supercharged over the past two years as the pandemic pushed people to suburbs and exurbs that are chronically short on inventory and Fed intervention torpedoed mortgage rates. Fed officials have begun to acknowledge the problem they have in housing, suggesting that they will eventually sell mortgage-backed securities they bought over the past two years.
Bloomberg
April 27, 2022
A study from the London Business School estimates that retail traders who entered the market during the coronavirus lockdowns lost as much as $1.14 billion from trading in options between November 2019 and June 2021 and an additional $4.13 billion in trading costs with market-makers. The newcomers were drawn into trading by the advent of zero-commission brokerages, but many of their favored strategies were akin to betting on lotteries.
Bloomberg
April 20, 2022
Workers at an Apple Inc. store in Atlanta became the first in the U.S. to file for a union election Wednesday, setting up a battle between organized labor and a Silicon Valley titan. The proposed union includes 107 workers at an Apple store in Cumberland Mall in northwest Atlanta. The group filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board Wednesday after it had collected signed cards of support from 70% of eligible employees.