October 22, 2020 Headlines

A modest risk-off trade in global markets is pushing Treasury yields lower this morning. In Europe, rising Covid cases and concerns that another lockdown may be imminent pushed Germany’s consumer confidence index into negative territory. Yesterday’s announcement by U.S. officials that Russian and Iran have both attempted to interfere with the presidential election is also weighing somewhat on market sentiment today, although it shouldn’t be too much of a shock at this point.

Initial jobless claims fell to 787,000 last week, well below expectations, and continuing claims fell to 8.37 million for the week ended October 10, also well below expectations. As noted last week, the data have been impacted for several weeks by California not reporting their figures while investigating irregularities in its figures. In the meantime, the Labor Department held the California numbers unchanged at the last posted level. Today’s report included updated and revised numbers from California, which were material (continuing claims fell from 2.8 million to 1.9 million). Also worth noting again is the fact that some of the decline in continuing claims is attributable to expiring state-level benefits, and for those who shift to Federal extended benefits, they are not included in this report.

Jason Haley
Chief Investment Officer

Date	Event	Survey	Actual	Prior	Revised
10/19/20	NAHB Housing Market Index	83	85	83	—
10/20/20	Housing Starts	1465k	1415k	1416k	1388k
10/20/20	Housing Starts MoM	3.50%	1.90%	-5.10%	-6.70%
10/20/20	Building Permits	1520k	1553k	1470k	1476k
10/20/20	Building Permits MoM	3.00%	5.20%	-0.90%	-0.50%
10/21/20	MBA Mortgage Applications	—	-0.60%	-0.70%	—
10/21/20	U.S. Federal Reserve Releases Beige Book
10/22/20	Initial Jobless Claims	870k	787k	898k	842k
10/22/20	Continuing Claims	9625k	8373k	10018k	9397k
10/22/20	Bloomberg Economic Expectations	—	—	41.5	—
10/22/20	Bloomberg Consumer Comfort	—	—	48.2	—
10/22/20	Leading Index	0.60%	—	1.20%	—
10/22/20	Existing Home Sales	6.30m	—	6.00m	—
10/22/20	Existing Home Sales MoM	5.00%	—	2.40%	—
10/22/20	Kansas City Fed Manf. Activity	11	—	11	—
10/23/20	Markit US Manufacturing PMI	53.5	—	53.2	—
10/23/20	Markit US Services PMI	54.6	—	54.6	—
10/23/20	Markit US Composite PMI	—	—	54.3	—

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