10 Things You Need To Know: September 20, 2022
Key data releases this week include: NAHB Housing Market Index (Mon), housing starts (Tue), existing home sales (wed), FOMC rate decision (Wed), and leading economic indicators (Thu).
Bloomberg
September 19, 2022
A gauge of US homebuilder sentiment declined for a ninth straight month in September as mortgage rates continued to climb, further accelerating the housing-market cool-down. The National Association of Home Buyers/Wells Fargo gauge decreased by three points to 46, figures showed Monday. Homebuilder sentiment has fallen every month this year, the longest stretch of declines in data back to 1985.
Haver
September 13, 2022
Consumer prices rose 0.1% (8.3% y/y) during August after holding steady in July. These readings are well below the 1.0% and 1.3% increases logged in May and June. A 0.1% August decline had been expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. Prices excluding food and energy strengthened 0.6% in August, double the July rise. The 6.3% y/y gain remained near the strongest since August 1982. A 0.3% August increase had been expected.
Haver
September 15, 2022
Total retail sales increased 0.3% (9.1% y/y) during August following a 0.4% July decline, which was revised from unchanged. No change in August sales was expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. In the retail control group, which excludes autos, gas stations, building materials & food services, sales were fairly steady (6.6% y/y) last month after a 0.4% increase.
Barron’s
September 19, 2022
As of Friday, December fed-funds futures were split between a 4%-to-4.25% and a 4.25%-to-4.5% year-end range. That would imply another 75-basis-point hike at the Nov. 1-2 FOMC gathering, followed by either a 25- or 50-point hike in December. The futures market no longer looks for the Fed to cut rates next year. They currently point to a peak range of 4.25% to 4.5%, to be hit by February and to linger through July.
Barron’s
September 19, 2022
The Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland’s median CPI for August, which drops outliers to measure underlying inflation, rose a record 6.7% in from its reading a year earlier. As Michael Ashton of Enduring Investments notes, about 70% of the components in the CPI increased at an annual pace greater than 6% last month. In the decade before the pandemic, that share was 10% or less.
Oxford Economics
September 16, 2022
Higher-for-longer inflation, more-aggressive Fed monetary policy tightening, and negative spillover effects from a weakening global backdrop will combine to push the US economy into a mild recession in the first half of 2023, in our view.
Bloomberg
September 14, 2022
Reflecting the surging value of the US dollar, the world’s total indebtedness, measured in dollars, has fallen for the first time since 2018. Data from the Institute of International Finance show that in this year’s second quarter, total global debt fell by about $5.5 trillion to $300 trillion.
Reuters
September 13, 2022
The US federal budget deficit was $220 billion in August, a 29% increase from a year earlier, according to the Treasury Department. The rise was driven in part by a 153% expansion in Medicare outlays, a 127% growth in education spending and a 53% increase in the interest paid on Treasury securities.
Bloomberg
September 14, 2022
With the main equity gauges all down heavily on the Tuesday, leveraged exchange-traded funds — which use options to amplify returns, usually of major indexes — added around $15.5 billion of selling pressure to the rout, according to estimates from Nomura Holdings Inc. It’s likely a big reason why stocks took another dip in the last 30 minutes to close out a particular brutal trading session.