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Schedule for Week of December 19th: Happy Holidays!

By Anonymous

This is a holiday week (Merry Christmas!), but there will still be plenty of economic releases. There are two key housing reports: November existing home sales on Wednesday, and New home sales on Thursday.

----- Monday, Dec 20th -----
8:30 AM ET: Chicago Fed National Activity Index (November). This is a composite index of other data.

Morning: Moody's/REAL Commercial Property Price Index (CPPI) for October.

----- Tuesday, Dec 21st -----
11:00 AM: The U.S. Census Bureau will release key 2010 Census data at a news conference in Washington, D.C. "The 2010 Census data to be released include the resident population for the nation and the states as well as the congressional apportionment totals for each state".

----- Wednesday, Dec 22nd -----
7:00 AM: The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) will release the mortgage purchase applications index. This index declined sharply following the expiration of the tax credit, and the index has only recovered slightly since then.

8:30 AM: Q3 GDP (third estimate). This is the third estimate for Q3 from the BEA, and the consensus is for real GDP growth to be revised to an increase of 2.8% annualized from the second estimate of 2.5%.

8:30 AM: Corporate Profits, 3rd quarter 2010 (second estimate)

10:00 AM: FHFA House Price Index for October. This is based on GSE repeat sales and is no longer as closely followed as Case-Shiller (or CoreLogic).

10:00 AM: Existing Home Sales for November from the National Association of Realtors (NAR). The consensus is for sales of 4.85 million at a Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate (SAAR) in November, up about 7% from the 4.43 million SAAR in October.

Click on graph for larger image in graph gallery.

This graph shows existing home sales, on a Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate (SAAR) basis since 1993. Sales in October 2010 were at a 4.43 million SAAR). Housing economist Tom Lawler is estimating an increase to 4.61 million (SAAR) in November.

In addition to sales, the level of inventory and months-of-supply will be very important (since months-of-supply impacts prices).

----- Thursday, Dec 23rd -----
8:30 AM: The initial weekly unemployment claims report will be released. The number of initial claims has been trending down over the last couple of months. The consensus is for the same as last week at 420,000.

8:30 AM: Personal Income and Outlays for November. The consensus is for a 0.2% increase in personal income and a 0.5% increase in personal spending, and for the Core PCE price index to increase 0.1%. This is a key report for estimating the growth in Q4 PCE using the two-month method.

8:30 AM: Durable Goods Orders for November from the Census Bureau. The consensus is for a 0.7% decrease in durable goods orders after decreasing 3.3% in October.

9:55 AM: Reuter's/University of Michigan's Consumer sentiment index (final for December). The consensus is for an increase to 74.5 from the preliminary reading of 74.2.

10:00 AM: New Home Sales for November from the Census Bureau. The consensus is for an increase in sales to 300K (SAAR) in November from 283K in October.

This graph shows New Home Sales since 1963. The dashed line is the current sales rate.

New home sales collapsed in May and have averaged only 290K (SAAR) over the last six months. Prior to the last six months, the previous record low was 338K in Sept 1981.

----- Friday, Dec 24th -----
U.S. Markets Closed: Christmas Holiday observed

----- Saturday, Dec 25th -----
12:01 AM: Santa Claus arrives.

Happy Holiday to All!

Full post as published by Calculated Risk on December 18, 2010 (boomark / email).