Note: Both Black Knight and the MBA (Mortgage Bankers Association) are putting out weekly estimates of mortgages in forbearance.This data is as of January 5th.From Black Knight: Slow Improvement in Forbearance Numbers ContinuesThe number of mortgages in active forbearance declined slightly once again this week, continuing the trend of very slow improvement seen in recent weeks. Total active forbearance plans are now down 1.5% from last month. This gradual rate of improvement sets the stage for a large number of plans to still be in active status when the first wave of forbearances begins to expire at the end of March….New plans edged higher thanks to an increase in restart activity, but overall, these numbers remain below pre-holiday levels. Forbearance starts were up 10,000 … [Read More...]

Friday: Retail Sales, Industrial Production, NY Fed Mfg, PPI
Friday:• At 8:30 AM ET, Retail sales for December is scheduled to be released. The consensus is for a 0.2% decrease in retail sales.• Also at 8:30 AM, The Producer Price Index for December from the BLS. The consensus is for a 0.3% increase in PPI, and a 0.2% increase in core PPI.• Also at 8:30 AM, The New York Fed Empire State manufacturing survey for January. The consensus is for a reading of 5.5, up from 4.9.• At 9:15 AM, The Fed will release Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization for December. The consensus is for a 0.4% increase in Industrial Production, and for Capacity Utilization to increase to 73.5%.• At 10:00 AM, University of Michigan’s Consumer sentiment index (Preliminary for January). [Read More...]
Leading Index for Commercial Real Estate Increased in December
From Dodge Data Analytics: Dodge Momentum Index Ends 2020 on a High NoteThe Dodge Momentum Index jumped 9.2% in December to 134.6 (2000=100) from the revised November reading of 123.3. 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 commercial component of the Momentum Index rose 14.0%, while the institutional component rose by 0.3%. The gain in the commercial component of the Momentum Index was heartening even though the increase was mostly the result of a sizeable increase in warehouse planning. The warehouse sector has been one of the few areas of construction that has flourished … [Read More...]
Thursday: Unemployment Claims, Fed Chair Powell
Thursday:• At 8:30 AM ET, The initial weekly unemployment claims report will be released. The consensus is for an increase to 850 thousand from 787 thousand last week.• At 12:30 PM, Discussion, Fed Chair Jerome Powell, “A Conversation with Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell”, At a livestream event hosted by Markus Brunnermerier, Director, Princeton University Bendheim Center for Finance [Read More...]
Houston Real Estate in December: Sales Up 27% YoY, Inventory Down 29% YoY
From the HAR: The Houston Housing Market Defies a Pandemic to Set New Records in 2020Not even a devastating global pandemic could stop the Houston real estate market from shattering records as it crossed the finish line for the 2020 calendar year. Single-family home sales surpassed 2019’s record volume by more than 10 percent, even as the supply of homes withered to the lowest levels of all time. … According to HAR’s 2020 annual market report, single-family home sales rose 10.5 percent to 96,151. Sales of all property types for the year totaled 115,523. That represents an 11.6-percent increase over 2019’s record volume and marks only the second time in history that total property sales broke the 100,000 level. Total dollar volume for 2020 shot up 18.1 percent to a record-breaking $35.3 billion. …December … [Read More...]
Wednesday: CPI, Beige Book
Wednesday:• At 7:00 AM ET, The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) will release the results for the mortgage purchase applications index.• At 8:30 AM, The Consumer Price Index for December from the BLS. The consensus is for 0.4% increase in CPI, and a 0.1% increase in core CPI.• At 2:00 PM, the Federal Reserve Beige Book, an informal review by the Federal Reserve Banks of current economic conditions in their Districts. [Read More...]
Denver Real Estate in December: Sales Up 5% YoY, Active Inventory Down 50%
From the DMAR: Monthly Indicators, December 2020The number of residential units sold in December (attached and detached) increased to 4,807, up 4.9% from 4,582 in December 2019.Active listings were at 2,541, down 49.6% from 5,037 in December 2019. This is a record low. Annual sales were up 7.0% compared to 2019. [Read More...]
Tuesday: Job Openings
From Matthew Graham at Mortgage News Daily: Rates Rising at Fastest Pace in MonthsMortgage rates are coming off a rough week–the roughest, in fact, since June 2020 by some measures. That’s the last time rates rose this quickly for market-driven reasons. There were a few instances of bigger moves in Aug/Sept as the new refinance fee was announced, delayed, and ultimately implemented. Either way, things aren’t great right now, relatively speaking. The “relative” qualification is important considering this abrupt move higher has yet to threaten to take the average top tier 30yr fixed quote above 3%–far from it, in fact. Most lenders can still offer 2.875% or better on refis and 2.625% or better on purchases. This assumes an ideal scenario with 20%+ equity, … [Read More...]
Housing Inventory Weekly Update: Starting the Year at Record Lows
One of the key questions for 2021 is: Will inventory increase as the pandemic subsides, or will inventory decrease further in 2021?Tracking inventory will be very important this year, and I’ll be using some weekly sources.Click on graph for larger image in graph gallery.This inventory graph is courtesy of Altos Research.As of January 8th, inventory is at 397 thousand (7 day average), compared to 738 thousand the same week a year ago. That is a decline of 46%.Mike Simonsen discusses this data regularly on Youtube. [Read More...]
Sunday Night Futures
Weekend:• Schedule for Week of January 10, 2021Monday:• No major economic releases scheduled.From CNBC: Pre-Market Data and Bloomberg futures S&P 500 are down 11 and DOW futures are down 80 (fair value).Oil prices were up over the last week with WTI futures at $52.26 per barrel and Brent at $55.81 barrel. A year ago, WTI was at $59, and Brent was at $67 – so WTI oil prices are down about 15% year-over-year. Here is a graph from Gasbuddy.com for nationwide gasoline prices. Nationally prices are at $2.32 per gallon. A year ago prices were at $2.59 per gallon, so gasoline prices are down $0.27 per gallon year-over-year. [Read More...]
By Request: Public and Private Sector Payroll Jobs During Presidential Terms
Note: I usually post this monthly, but I hesitated recently due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But I’ve received a number of requests lately – the recent numbers are ugly.Here is another update of tracking employment during Presidential terms. We frequently use Presidential terms as time markers – we could use Speaker of the House, Fed Chair, or any other marker.NOTE: Several readers have asked if I could add a lag to these graphs (obviously a new President has zero impact on employment for the month they are elected). But that would open a debate on the proper length of the lag, so I’ll just stick to the beginning of each term.Important: There are many differences between these periods. Overall employment was smaller in the ’80s, … [Read More...]
January 9 COVID-19 Test Results; Record 7-Day Deaths
Note: I’m looking forward to not posting this data in a few months. The US is now averaging close to 2 million tests per day. Based on the experience of other countries, for adequate test-and-trace (and isolation) to reduce infections, the percent positive needs to be under 5% (probably close to 1%), so the US has far too many daily cases – and percent positive – to do effective test-and-trace.There were 2,000,196 test results reported over the last 24 hours.There were 261,993 positive tests.Almost 27,000 US deaths have been reported so far in January. See the graph on US Daily Deaths here.Click on graph for larger image.This data is from the COVID Tracking Project.The percent positive over the last 24 hours was 13.1% (red line … [Read More...]
Schedule for Week of January 10, 2021
The key reports this week are December CPI and retail sales.For manufacturing, the December Industrial Production report and the January NY Fed manufacturing survey will be released.—– Monday, Jan 11th —–No major economic releases scheduled.—– Tuesday, Jan 12th —–6:00 AM: NFIB Small Business Optimism Index for December.10:00 AM ET: Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for November from the BLS. This graph shows job openings (yellow line), hires (purple), Layoff, Discharges and other (red column), and Quits (light blue column) from the JOLTS. Jobs openings increased in October to 6.652 million from 6.494 million in September.The number of job openings (yellow) were down 9% year-over-year, and Quits were up 10% year-over-year.—– Wednesday, Jan 13th —–7:00 AM ET: The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) will release the … [Read More...]
January 8 COVID-19 Test Results; Record 7-Day Deaths and Cases
Note: I’m looking forward to not posting this data in a few months. The US is now averaging close to 2 million tests per day. Based on the experience of other countries, for adequate test-and-trace (and isolation) to reduce infections, the percent positive needs to be under 5% (probably close to 1%), so the US has far too many daily cases – and percent positive – to do effective test-and-trace.There were 2.1 million test results reported over the last 24 hours.There were 310,000 positive tests.Over 23,000 US deaths have been reported so far in January. See the graph on US Daily Deaths here.Click on graph for larger image.This data is from the COVID Tracking Project.The percent positive over the last 24 hours was 14.8% (red … [Read More...]
Q4 GDP Forecasts
From Goldman Sachs: We left our Q4 GDP tracking estimate unchanged at +5.0% (qoq ar). [Jan 8 estimate]From the NY Fed Nowcasting ReportThe New York Fed Staff Nowcast stands at 2.2% for 2020:Q4 and 5.5 for 2021:Q1 [Jan 8 estimate]And from the Altanta Fed: GDPNowThe GDPNow model estimate for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the fourth quarter of 2020 is 8.7 percent on January 8, up from 8.5 percent on January 7. [Jan 8 estimate] [Read More...]
Friday: Employment Report
My December Employment PreviewGoldman December Payrolls PreviewFriday:• At 8:30 AM ET, Employment Report for December. The consensus is for 70 thousand jobs added, and for the unemployment rate to increase to 6.8%.Click on graph for larger image.This graph shows the job losses from the start of the employment recession, in percentage terms through November.The current employment recession was by far the worst recession since WWII in percentage terms, and the worst in terms of the unemployment rate. [Read More...]
December Employment Preview
On Friday at 8:30 AM ET, the BLS will release the employment report for December. The consensus is for 70 thousand jobs added, and for the unemployment rate to increase to 6.8%.• ADP Report: The ADP employment report showed a loss of 123,000 private sector jobs, well below the consensus estimate of 88 thousand jobs added. The ADP report hasn’t been very useful in predicting the BLS report, but this suggests the BLS report could be weaker than expected.• ISM Surveys: The ISM manufacturing employment index increased in December to 51.5%, up from 48.4% in November. This would suggest essentially approximately 10,000 manufacturing jobs lost in December. ADP showed 21,000 manufacturing jobs lost.The ISM Services employment index decreased in December to 48.2% from 51.5% in November. This would suggest around 25,000 … [Read More...]
Thursday: Unemployment Claims, Trade Deficit, ISM Services
Thursday:• At 8:30 AM ET, The initial weekly unemployment claims report will be released. • Also at 8:30 AM, Trade Balance report for November from the Census Bureau. The consensus is the trade deficit to be $64.5 billion. The U.S. trade deficit was at $63.1 billion in October.• At 10:00 AM, the ISM Services Index for December. [Read More...]
U.S. Heavy Truck Sales down 5% Year-over-year in December
The following graph shows heavy truck sales since 1967 using data from the BEA. The dashed line is the December 2020 seasonally adjusted annual sales rate (SAAR).Heavy truck sales really collapsed during the great recession, falling to a low of 180 thousand SAAR in May 2009. Then heavy truck sales increased to a new all time high of 575 thousand SAAR in September 2019.However heavy truck sales started declining in late 2019 due to lower oil prices.Note: “Heavy trucks – trucks more than 14,000 pounds gross vehicle weight.”Click on graph for larger image.Heavy truck sales really declined towards the end of March due to COVID-19 and the collapse in oil prices, but have since rebounded.Heavy truck sales were at 454 thousand SAAR in December, down from 477 thousand SAAR in November, and … [Read More...]
Wednesday: ADP Employment
Wednesday:• At 7:00 AM ET, The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) will release the results for the mortgage purchase applications index.• At 8:15 AM, The ADP Employment Report for December. This report is for private payrolls only (no government). The report showed 307,000 jobs added in November. [Read More...]