10 Things You Need to Know: November 26, 2024
Key data releases this week include: FHFA House Price Index (Tue), new home sales (Tue), consumer confidence (Tue), FOMC meeting minutes (Tue), Q3 GDP revision (Wed), durable goods orders (Wed), pending home sales (Wed), personal income and spending (Wed), and PCE Deflator (Wed).
Haver
November 21, 2024
The Conference Board’s Leading Economic Index fell 0.4% (-4.1% y/y) during October, following two months of 0.3% weakening. A 0.3% decline in the October index had been expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey.
Haver
November 21, 2024
Sales of existing homes rebounded in October, increasing 3.4% m/m (+2.9% y/y) to 3.96 million (SAAR) after having fallen in both August and September. The Action Economics Forecast Survey expected October sales of 3.90 million units. The median price of an existing single-family home increased 0.2% m/m (4.1% y/y) to $412,200.
Bloomberg
November 22, 2204
The University of Michigan’s index of consumer sentiment edged up 1.3 points from a month earlier to 71.8. The report also showed consumers’ year-ahead inflation expectations eased to 2.6%, the lowest since 2020. They saw inflation rising 3.2% over the next five to 10 years, up from 3% a month earlier and the highest since November 2023.
CNBC, Bloomberg
November 20, 2024
Economists forecast that the euro could reach parity with the US dollar by 2025, driven by President-elect Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs and fiscal policies. “If the Trump agenda is implemented in full force and quickly without a countervailing policy response from Europe or China, we could see [euro-US dollar] drop through parity to 0.95 cents or even below,” said George Saravelos, global head of FX Research at Deutsche Bank.
Barron’s
November 25, 2024
Nvidia has become the world’s most valuable company (even with a late-week dip following merely great earnings), eclipsing the total value of the entire United Kingdom stock market.
Barron’s
November 25, 2024
On Nov. 14, Russia pulled the export license for the company that sends enriched uranium to the U.S. for use in nuclear reactors. Russian uranium accounts for 40% of the global supply. The Russian ban doesn’t mean that America’s 94 existing nuclear reactors will stop working immediately. They have supplies of enriched uranium stored up. The future of U.S. nuclear plants could be in jeopardy, however, if imports from Russia are banned indefinitely.
John Williams, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of NY, Baron’s
November 25, 2024
“I expect gross domestic product for the year to probably be around 2.5%, or maybe a little higher. I expect the labor market to continue where it is, and maybe [show] a little further cooling. The current unemployment rate is 4.1% [in October]. Maybe it will get to 4.25%. And I expect inflation to continue to gradually come down. I’m expecting the inflation rate to be around 2.25% for the full year.”
Paulsen Perspectives, Barron’s
November 25, 2024
“An array of economic policies— potential tariff hikes, historically high and restrictive real short-term and long-term interest rates, inadequate liquidity growth relative to overall economic activity, and a very strong real U.S. dollar combined with a very weak domestic capacity utilization rate—seem likely to surprise many and cause the annual CPI inflation rate to moderate below the Fed’s 2% target level in 2025.”
Capital Economics
November 25, 2024
We still expect Trump to move relatively quickly next year to impose tariffs and immigration curbs. We don’t expect any major fiscal stimulus. We do expect the coming fiscal cliff to be avoided, with an extension of the original Trump tax cuts, but any tax cuts above and beyond that will be largely offset by spending cuts.