ECONOMICS

The broadly weak trend of US macro data was jolted yesterday by the hotter than expected GDP print (hilariously driven by a surge in personal consumption at the same time as Dollar General announced the time of death of the US consumer), which prompted a hawkish shift in rate-cut expectations. However, this morning, the doves get another chance for some 'bad news' (disinflation) to support their 'we must cut in September" narrative, unveiled by Powell himself last week (more…)

After tumbling in April, and rebounding modestly in June, analysts expected a continued gain in pending home sales in July, but it wasn't meant to be: moments ago the NAR reported that in July, Pending Home Sales tumbled 5.5% MoM, a huge miss to the 0.2% expected gain (and down from a 4.8% increase in June), and also slumped 4.6% YoY, a modest improvement from the 7.8% plunged in June but also missing expectations of a -2.0% drop.

That dragged the Pending home sales index to (more…)

Initial jobless claims continue to drift along in the same range it has been in for three years, with unadjusted claims literally near record lows, just in time for the Fed to cut rates following the recent near-record revision to payrolls. Almost as if one hand of the Dept of Labor (initial claims reports) is unaware of what the other hand (Payrolls and especially revisions) is doing.

Broken down by region, the bulk of initial claims (unadjusted) was in the West, followed by the (more…)