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Thursday, May 31, 2012

May Contest Winners and Look Ahead

by Calculated Risk on 5/31/2012 09:09:00 PM

The June contest starts on Friday with four questions (see below). For the economic question contest in May, the leaders were (Congratulations all!):

1) Bill Dawers
2) Bill (Calculated Risk)
3) (2 way tie) Liye Ma
3) Jon Fader
5) (3 way tie) David Fiene
5) Joey Cordero
5) Andrew Marrinson

Friday will be another busy day:

• At 8:30 AM ET, the BLS is scheduled to release the employment situation report for May. The consensus is for an increase of 150,000 non-farm payroll jobs in May, up from the 115,000 jobs added in April. Earlier I posted an employment preview.

• Also at 8:30 AM the Personal Income and Outlays report for April will be released. The consensus is for a 0.3% increase in personal income in April, and a 0.3% increase in personal spending, and for the Core PCE price index to increase 0.1%.

• At 10:00 AM ET, the ISM Manufacturing Index for May is scheduled for release. The consensus is for a slight decrease to 54.0 from 54.8 in April. The regional Fed surveys were mixed this month. Also the Chicago PMI released this morning was weaker than expected, and Markit has introduced a new "Flash PMI" for the US showing "the seasonally adjusted PMI falling from 56.0 in April to 53.9". This would suggest a larger decrease in the ISM index.

• Also at 10:00 AM, the Census Bureau will release Construction Spending for April. The consensus is for a 0.4% increase in construction spending.

• And during the day, the auto manufacturers will report light vehicle sales for May. Light vehicle sales are expected to increase to 14.5 million from 14.4 million in April (Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate).