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Peter Boockvar

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Succinct Summation of the Week’s Events – 11/23

Positives 1) The average 30 yr US mortgage rate was little changed w/o/w at 5.16%, just off the 8 1/2 year high of 5.17% last week. Purchases did rebound by 3.1% w/o/w off the lowest level since February 2017 but they are down 4.8% y/o/y. 2) Existing home sales in October totaled 5.22mm, a touch above the estimate of 5.2mm and up from 5.15mm in September. The …

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Succinct Summation of the Week’s Events 11/16

Positives 1) Jay Powell still seems intent on raising rates next month but maybe gave himself some wiggle room on that when talking about the economic softening going on overseas. While a pause would have made perfect sense if the fed funds rate was already at 3% or higher, dragging their feet and only getting it to 2-2.25% at this point really complicates their …

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Succinct Summation of the Week’s Events – 11/9

Positives 1) The FOMC statement was as uneventful as can be but that itself is a message from the Fed that nothing that occurred in October is going to alter their interest in raising rates again in December. 2) Initial jobless claims at 214k was as expected and little changed from 215k last week. The 4 week average also held at 214k. Continuing claims, delayed …

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Succinct Summation of the Week’s Events – 11/2

Positives 1) October payrolls grew by 250k, 50k more than expected and there were no net revisions over the two prior months. The household survey reported a big number with a 600k increase in new jobs but because the labor force grew by a whopping 711k, the unemployment rate held at 3.7% while the U6 fell one tenth to 7.4%. Positively, most of these household job …

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Succinct Summation of the Week’s Events – 10/26

This is being sent before the GDP report because I'll be in transit/meetings.   Positives 1) Pending home sales rose .5% in September, a touch above the forecast of no change and follows a 1.9% decline in August. Sales are still lower by 3.4% y/o/y and the m/o/m rise is off the lowest index level since October 2014. The chief economist of the NAR …

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Succinct Summation of the Week’s Events – 10/19

  Positives 1)Initial jobless claims totaled 210k pretty much as expected and down from 215k last week. The 4 week average did tick up to 212k from 210k because a 202k print dropped out of the average. Continuing claims, delayed by a week, fell by 13k to the least since 1973. 2)The Philly manufacturing October index was 22.2 vs 22.9 last week but 2 …

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Succinct Summation of the Week’s Events – 10/12

Positives 1) President’s Trump and Xi plan a get together at the G20 meeting the end of November. 2) The September consumer price index rose .1% both headline and core and that was one tenth less than expected. The y/o/y gains moderated to 2.3% headline from 2.7% in August. The core rate was up 2.2%, the same as in August. Again, core goods deflation of .3% …

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Succinct Summation of the Week’s Events – 10/5

Positives 1) September hiring totaled 134k, 50k less than expected but that was completely offset and then some by the 87k person upward revision to the two previous months. After shedding 423k jobs in the household survey in August, 420k were added back in September. As that rose above the 150k increase in the size of the labor force, the unemployment rate fell 2 …

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Succinct Summation of the Week’s Events – 9/28

Positives 1) The PCE inflation data for August was about as expected with a one tenth rise m/o/m at the headline level and no change at the core. The core rate was one tenth less than expected but because of rounding the y/o/y print of 2% was as forecasted. The headline gain was 2.2%. Again, the inflation story is rising prices in the service sector and falling …

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Succinct Summation of the Week’s Events – 9/21

Positives 1) A story with no detail and no comments but “two people familiar with the matter said” that China has plans to cut sometime next month the average tariff rate that it puts on many of its imports. 2) Initial jobless claims totaled 201k, 9k less than expected and down from 204k last week. This brings the 4 week average down to 206k from 208k last week. …

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