Sunday, January 03, 2010

Weekly Summary and a Look Ahead

The first week of the new year will be chock-full of economic data, culminating with the December employment report on Friday. Expectations are for the BLS to report somewhere between 50,000 jobs lost or gained, with a consensus of no change in net jobs and the unemployment rate to remain steady.

On Monday, the ISM manufacturing index and construction spending will be released. The highlight for Tuesday will be auto sales and on Wednesday the ISM non-manufacturing index will be released.

Other economic releases include the number of personal bankruptcy filings for December, the apartment vacancy rate for Q4, factory orders, and various employment reports.

And a summary of last week ...

  • Case-Shiller house price index increased slightly in October

    S&P/Case-Shiller released their monthly Home Price Indices for October. The following graph shows the Seasonally Adjusted data - some sites report the NSA data.

    Case-Shiller House Prices Indices Click on graph for larger image in new window.

    The first graph shows the nominal seasonally adjusted Composite 10 and Composite 20 indices (the Composite 20 was started in January 2000).

    The Composite 10 index is off 30.5% from the peak, and up about 0.4% in October.

    The Composite 20 index is off 29.5% from the peak, and up 0.4% in October.

    NOTE: S&P reported this as "flat", but they were using the NSA data.

  • Case-Shiller house prices by City

    The seconrd graph shows the price declines from the peak for each city included in S&P/Case-Shiller indices.

    Case-Shiller Price Declines Prices decreased (SA) in 9 of the 20 Case-Shiller cities in October.

    In Las Vegas, house prices have declined 56.3% from the peak. At the other end of the spectrum, prices in Dallas are only off about 5.4% from the peak - and up slightly in 2009. Prices have declined by double digits from the peak in 18 of the 20 Case-Shiller cities.

  • Fannie Mae reported delinquencies increased sharply in October

    Fannie Mae Seriously Delinquent Rate

    Fannie Mae reported that the rate of serious delinquencies - at least 90 days behind - for conventional loans in its single-family guarantee business increased to 4.98% in October, up from 4.72% in September - and up from 1.89% in October 2008.


  • Other Economic Stories ...

  • From Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke today: Monetary Policy and the Housing Bubble

  • House Prices: Stress Test, Price-to-Rent, and More

  • From the WSJ: Treasury Ends TARP Bank Investments

  • From Dow Jones: Revisions Show Chicago PMI At 58.7 In December. Note: the Chicago Institute for Supply Management revised down the Chicago PMI to 58.7 on Thursday from the announced reading of 60.0 on Wednesday. The most significant change was to the employment index that now shows contraction at 47.6 compared to the announced 51.2.

  • From the American Trucking Association: ATA Truck Tonnage Index Jumped 2.7 Percent In November

  • Restaurant Index Shows Contraction in November

  • Unofficial Problem Bank List Increases to 575

    Best wishes and Happy New Year to all.
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