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Saturday, January 01, 2011

Schedule for Week of January 2, 2011

by Calculated Risk on 1/01/2011 08:30:00 AM

Happy New Year!

The key report for this week will be the December employment report to be released on Friday, Jan 7th. Other key reports include the ISM manufacturing index on Monday, vehicle sales on Tuesday, and the ISM non-manufacturing (service) index on Wednesday.

----- Monday, Jan 3rd -----

10:00 AM: ISM Manufacturing Index for December. The consensus is for an increase to 57.2 from 56.6 in November.

10:00 AM: Construction Spending for November. The consensus is for a 0.2% increase in construction spending.

----- Tuesday, Jan 4th -----

10:00 AM: Manufacturers' Shipments, Inventories and Orders for November. The consensus is for a 0.2% decrease in orders.

2:00 PM: FOMC Minutes, Meeting of December 14, 2010.

All day: Light vehicle sales for December. Light vehicle sales are expected to increase slightly to 12.3 million (Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate), from 12.2 million in November.

Vehicle Sales Click on graph for larger image in graph gallery.

If correct, this will be the highest sales rate since September 2008, excluding Cash-for-clunkers in August 2009.

This graph shows light vehicle sales since the BEA started keeping data in 1967. The dashed line is the November sales rate.

Edmunds is forecasting:
Edmunds.com analysts predict that December's Seasonally Adjusted Annualized Rate (SAAR) will be the year’s highest, 12.34 million, up from 12.21 in November 2010.
----- Wednesday, Jan 5th -----

7:00 AM: The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) will release the mortgage purchase applications index for the last two weeks. This index has only recovered slightly over the last few months - suggesting reported home sales through early 2011 will be weak. Also refinance activity has collapsed over the last few weeks as mortgage rates have increased.

8:15 AM: The ADP Employment Report for December. This report is for private payrolls only (no government). The consensus is for +100,000 payroll jobs in December, up from the +93,000 jobs reported in November.

10:00 AM: ISM non-Manufacturing Index for December. The consensus is for a slight increase to 55.5 from 55.0 in November.

----- Thursday, Jan 6th -----

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 an increase to 400,000 from 388,000 last week.

----- Friday, Jan 7th -----

8:30 AM: Employment Report for December.

Payroll Jobs per Month The consensus is for an increase of 140,000 non-farm payroll jobs in December, after the disappointing 39,000 jobs added in November.

This graph shows the net payroll jobs per month (excluding temporary Census jobs) since the beginning of the recession. The estimate for December is in blue.

The consensus is for the unemployment rate to decline to 9.7% from 9.8% in November.

9:30 AM: Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, Testimony before the Committee on the Budget, U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C. "The Economic Outlook and Monetary and Fiscal Policy"

3:00 PM: Consumer Credit for November. The consensus is for consumer credit to be unchanged.

After 4:00 PM: The FDIC will probably have another busy Friday afternoon ...

----- Saturday, Jan 8th -----

4:30 PM: Panel Discussion, Fed Vice Chair Janet L. Yellen, "The Federal Reserve's Asset Purchase Program", Denver, Colorado

----- Likely, but not scheduled -----

December Personal Bankruptcy Filings

Reis is expected to release their Q4 Office, Mall and Apartment vacancy rate reports.