Marketwatch 666

It appears that the only widely watched report scheduled for last week was the Existing Home Sales Report for September from the National Association of Realtors (NAR), as all the usual end of the month US agency reports are scheduled for next week (and will inevitably be delayed because the data gathering for them has been suspended since October 1st)….however, since the September Consumer Price Index was needed to compute the annual cost of living increase for Social Security, the Bureau of Labor Statistics did bring in a skeleton crew to get that report published, using data which had already been collected by Census Bureau field agents during September, so we also have that….In addition, the week also saw another regional Fed manufacturing survey for October: the Kansas City Fed manufacturing survey , covering western Missouri, Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Wyoming and northern New Mexico, reported its broadest composite index rose to +6 in October, up from +4 in Septembe...

Major reports that were scheduled to be released this week but postponed due to the shutdown included the September Consumer Price Index and the September Producer Price Index , both from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Retail Sales report for September and the corresponding Business Sales and Inventories report for August , both from the Census Bureau, the report on Industrial production and Capacity Utilization for September from the Fed, and the September report on New Residential Construction from the Census Bureau….however, because the computation of Social Security’s annual cost of living increase is dependent on third quarter prices, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has brought in a crew to work on the September Consumer Price Index , and that report is now scheduled to be released on ​Friday, October 24th, shutdown or not, to give those agencies who need to compute COLAs the data they need before the annual increases would go into effect starting November 1st… Since the...

Economic reports that were scheduled to be released last week but not prepared due to the government shutdown included the August report on our International Trade from the Commerce Dept, and the August report on Wholesale Trade, Sales and Inventories from the Census Bureau…reports scheduled for next week which will be delayed since no one has been working on the details include the September Consumer Price Index and the September Producer Price Index , both from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the Retail Sales report for September from the Census Bureau…as of today, the tenth day of the shutdown, i have not yet seen any indication as to when this will end; the Senate has held at least 7 votes on the competing Democrat and Republican proposals to at least temporarily fund government operations, and with voting largely along party lines, neither proposal has come close to getting the 60 votes that the Senate would need to move forward…in fact, not one of the 100 Senators has cha...

As i imagine you all know, Congress failed to pass legislation to fund the Federal government for the fiscal year beginning October 1st, halting all government services deemed nonessential beginning on that date, ​ie, Wednesday of this week.…that meant that the only report released this past week was the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) for August, which was released on Tuesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics…​other reports that were scheduled but not released this week included the Employment Situation Summary for September , also from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the August report on Construction Spending (pdf), and the Full Report on Manufacturers’ Shipments, Inventories and Orders for August , both from the Census Bureau…however, since the Fed is an independent agency, we did see the last regional Fed manufacturing survey for September: the Dallas Fed Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey , which covers Texas and adjacent western Louisiana and southeastern New...

The key economic releases of the past week were the 3rd estimate of 2nd quarter GDP from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, which included an annual revision covering the prior five years, and the August report on Personal Income and Spending , also from the BEA, which includes two months of data on personal consumption expenditures and hence will account for more than 47% of 3rd quarter GDP….other widely watched reports released this week included t he August advance report on durable goods and the August report on new home sales , both from the Census bureau, and the Existing Home Sales Report for August from the National Association of Realtors…in addition, this week also saw the release of the Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI) for August , a weighted composite index of 85 different economic metrics, which rose to –0.12 in August from –0.28 in July, after the July index was revised down from –0.19; that left the more often cited 3 month moving average of the index at –0.1...