New economic data will be in short supply this week but the few releases that will be published do concern the housing market. Monday gives a look at homebuilder confidence, Tuesday gives data on new construction, and Thursday will show the survey week results for Jobless Claims.
Further Details:
The only bit of data to start the week is the 1pm release on homebuilder sentiment, published by the National Association of Home Builders. The monthly report is supposed to tick up to 16 this month, up from a dismal 14 in April.
On Tuesday, the Housing Starts & Building Permits release is expected to show a slight advance in starts, with the consensus looking for an annualized pace of 523k new construction projects in April, up from 510k in March. Building permits, which anticipate starts by a month or two, are expected to move up to 530k, up from 514k in March.
Analysts at IHS Global Insight said they aren’t calling for a bottom in the housing market just yet, but that this week could bring signs of stabilization. They note that single-family housing starts haven’t moved in two months, and new home sales have moved up from the all-time low in January.
At 1:15pm, Minneapolis Fed President Gary Stern speaks to the Willmar Lakes Area Chamber of Commerce in Willmar.
To begin Wednesday, the weekly release of Mortgage Loan Applications is released at 7am by MBA.
At 2pm, the Federal Reserve releases minutes from the latest FOMC meeting. The release could be of interest to economists but will likely have little impact on markets, as the meeting only decided to maintain the status quo.
Prior to the opening bell on Thursday, Jobless Claims will be released at 8:30 am. The weekly survey will get extra attention as this is the survey week used for tracking NonFarm Payrolls. The number of Americans filing for first-time unemployment benefits has been north of 600k for 15 weeks now, and the consensus looks for 640k for the week ending May 16.
At 10am, the Philadelphia Fed posts its survey results for its Business Conditions index, the second regional manufacturing report to be released for May. Last week, the New York Fed’s index showed much slower contraction in May than anticipated.
At 7pm, the President of the Philly Fed, Charles Plosser, speaks to the New York Money Marketeers.
No data will be released on Friday.