July 29, 2020 Headlines

Financial markets are relatively quiet this morning ahead of today’s FOMC meeting. Today’s Fed announcement should be anticlimactic relative to prior meetings this year, which is probably a good thing at this point. The official statement should continue to project an intention to keep policy very accommodative until a recovery is well under way. If there were to be a major surprise, it would likely be any discussion of changes to the current pace of QE purchases at some point this year. Mortgage application activity cooled last week according to the MBA survey. Overall activity was down 0.8% for the week ended July 24, including a 0.4% decline in refi applications and a 1.5% decline in purchase applications. The refi index remains more than double the long-term average since records began in 1989.

Jason Haley
Chief Investment Officer

DateEventSurveyActualPriorRevised
7/29/20MBA Mortgage Applications—-0.80%4.10%—
7/29/20Advance Goods Trade Balance-$75.4b-$70.6b-$74.3b-$75.3b
7/29/20Wholesale Inventories MoM-0.50%-2.00%-1.20%—
7/29/20Retail Inventories MoM-2.70%-2.60%-6.10%-6.20%
7/29/20Pending Home Sales MoM15.00%—44.30%—
7/29/20Pending Home Sales NSA YoY2.20%—-10.40%—
7/29/20FOMC Rate Decision (Upper Bound)0.25%—0.25%—
7/29/20FOMC Rate Decision (Lower Bound)0.00%—0.00%—
7/29/20Interest Rate on Excess Reserves0.10%—0.10%—
7/30/20Revisions: GDP
7/30/20GDP Annualized QoQ-34.80%—-5.00%—
7/30/20Personal Consumption-34.50%—-6.80%—
7/30/20GDP Price Index0.00%—1.40%—
7/30/20Core PCE QoQ-0.90%—1.70%—
7/30/20Initial Jobless Claims1430k—1416k—
7/30/20Continuing Claims16250k—16197k—
7/30/20Bloomberg Consumer Comfort——44.7—
7/31/20Revisions: Personal Income & Spending
7/31/20Personal Income-0.70%—-4.20%—
7/31/20Personal Spending5.20%—8.20%—
7/31/20Real Personal Spending5.00%—8.10%—
7/31/20PCE Deflator MoM0.40%—0.10%—
7/31/20PCE Deflator YoY0.90%—0.50%—
7/31/20PCE Core Deflator MoM0.20%—0.10%—
7/31/20PCE Core Deflator YoY1.00%—1.00%—
7/31/20Employment Cost Index0.60%—0.80%—
7/31/20MNI Chicago PMI44—36.6—
7/31/20U. of Mich. Sentiment72.8—73.2—
7/31/20U. of Mich. Current Conditions——84.2—
7/31/20U. of Mich. Expectations——66.2—
7/31/20U. of Mich. 1 Yr Inflation——3.10%—
7/31/20U. of Mich. 5-10 Yr Inflation——2.70%—

 

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