The key reports this week are September New and Existing Home sales.For manufacturing, the Richmond and Kansas City Fed manufacturing surveys will be released this week.—– Monday, Oct 21st —–No major economic releases scheduled.—– Tuesday, Oct 22nd —–10:00 AM: Existing Home Sales for September from the National Association of Realtors (NAR). The consensus is for 5.45 million SAAR, down from 5.49 million in August.The graph shows existing home sales from 1994 through the report last month.Housing economist Tom Lawler expects the NAR to report 5.36 million SAAR.10:00 AM ET: Richmond Fed Survey of Manufacturing Activity for October.—– Wednesday, Oct 23rd —–7:00 AM ET: The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) will release the results for the mortgage purchase applications index.9:00 AM: FHFA House Price Index for August 2018. This was originally a GSE … [Read More...]

Special note: The expansion to the Panama Canal was completed in 2016 (As I noted a few years ago), and some of the traffic that used the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach is probably going through the canal. This might be impacting TEUs on the West Coast.Container traffic gives us an idea about the volume of goods being exported and imported – and usually some hints about the trade report since LA area ports handle about 40% of the nation’s container port traffic.The following graphs are for inbound and outbound traffic at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach in TEUs (TEUs: 20-foot equivalent units or 20-foot-long cargo container). To remove the strong seasonal component for inbound traffic, the first graph shows the … [Read More...]

From the Philly Fed: Current Manufacturing Indexes Suggest Growth in October Manufacturing activity in the region continued to grow, according to results from the October Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey. The survey’s broad indicators remained positive, although their movements were mixed this month: The general activity and shipments indicators decreased from their readings last month, but the indicators for new orders and employment increased. The survey’s future activity indexes remained positive, suggesting continued optimism about growth for the next six months.The diffusion index for current general activity fell 6 points this month to 5.6, after decreasing 5 points in September.emphasis addedThis was at the consensus forecast. Here is a graph comparing the regional Fed surveys and the ISM manufacturing index: Click on graph for larger image.The New York … [Read More...]

Now that new home sales have reached a new cycle high (in June), I’d like to update a couple of graphs in a previous post (most of this from an earlier post).For the economy, what we should be focused on are single family starts and new home sales. As I noted in Investment and Recessions “New Home Sales appears to be an excellent leading indicator, and currently new home sales (and housing starts) are up solidly year-over-year, and this suggests there is no recession in sight.”For the bottoms and troughs for key housing activity, here is a graph of Single family housing starts, New Home Sales, and Residential Investment (RI) as a percent of GDP. Click on graph for larger image.The arrows … [Read More...]

Way back in 2005, I posted a graph of the Real Estate Agent Boom. Here is another update to the graph.The graph shows the number of real estate licensees in California.The number of agents peaked at the end of 2007 (housing activity peaked in 2005, and prices in 2006). The number of salesperson’s licenses is off 26% from the peak, and is increasing again (up 11% from low). The number of salesperson’s licenses has increased to November 2004 levels.Brokers’ licenses are off 14.2% from the peak and have fallen to December 2005 levels, and may be bottoming.. Click on graph for larger image.We are seeing a pickup in Real Estate licensees in California, although the number of Brokers is mostly flat. [Read More...]

The following graph shows heavy truck sales since 1967 using data from the BEA. The dashed line is the September 2019 seasonally adjusted annual sales rate (SAAR).Heavy truck sales really collapsed during the great recession, falling to a low of 180 thousand in May 2009, on a seasonally adjusted annual rate basis (SAAR). Then sales increased more than 2 1/2 times, and hit 479 thousand SAAR in June 2015.Heavy truck sales declined again – mostly due to the weakness in the oil sector – and bottomed at 366 thousand SAAR in October 2016.Click on graph for larger image.Following the low in 2016, heavy truck sales increased to a new all time high in July 2019, but have declined over the last couple months.Heavy truck sales were at 501 thousand SAAR in September, down from 538 thousand SAAR in … [Read More...]

The key economic reports this week are September Housing Starts and Retail Sales.For manufacturing, September Industrial Production, and the October New York and Philly Fed surveys, will be released this week.—– Monday, Oct 14th —–Columbus Day Holiday: Banks will be closed in observance of Columbus Day. The stock market will be open. No economic releases are scheduled.—– Tuesday, Oct 15th —–8:30 AM ET: The New York Fed Empire State manufacturing survey for October. The consensus is for a reading of 0.8, down from 2.0.—– Wednesday, Oct 16th —–7:00 AM ET: The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) will release the results for the mortgage purchase applications index.8:30 AM ET: Retail sales for September will be released. The consensus is for a 0.3% increase in retail sales.This graph shows the year-over-… [Read More...]

From Dodge Data Analytics: Dodge Momentum Index Posts Gain in SeptemberThe Dodge Momentum Index moved 4.1% higher in September to 143.6 (2000=100) from the revised August reading of 137.9. The Momentum Index, issued by Dodge Data & Analytics, is a monthly measure of the first (or initial) report for nonresidential building projects in planning, which have been shown to lead construction spending for nonresidential buildings by a full year.The gain in September was due entirely to an 8.9% increase in the commercial component, while the institutional component fell 4.8%.For the third quarter, the overall Momentum Index averaged 140.1, a scant increase of 0.7% from its average in the previous quarter. Compared to the third quarter of 2018, however, the Momentum Index is 8.6% lower with the commercial … [Read More...]

One of the metrics we’d like to follow is a ratio of house prices to incomes. Unfortunately most income data is released with a significantly lag, and there are always questions about which income data to use (the average total income is skewed by the income of a few people).And for key measures of house prices – like Case-Shiller – we have indexes, not actually prices.But we can construct a ratio of the house price indexes to some measure of income.For this graph I decided to look at house prices and the National Average Wage Index released today for 2018 from Social Security.Note: For a different look at house prices and income, see this post (using median income). Click on graph for larger image.This … [Read More...]

Notes: In August there were 7.051 million job openings, and, according to the August Employment report, there were 6,044 million unemployed. So, for the eighteenth consecutive month, there were more job openings than people unemployed. Also note that the number of job openings has exceeded the number of hires since January 2015 (almost 5 years).From the BLS: Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary The number of job openings was little changed at 7.1 million on the last business day of August, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the month, hires edged down to 5.8 million and separations were little changed at 5.6 million. Within separations, the quits rate was little changed at 2.3 percent, and the layoffs and discharges rate was unchanged at 1.2 percent. … The number of quits decreased in … [Read More...]