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Tuesday, March 15, 2022

Wednesday: FOMC Statement, Retail Sales, Homebuilder Survey

by Calculated Risk on 3/15/2022 08:52:00 PM

Wednesday:
• At 7:00 AM ET, The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) will release the results for the mortgage purchase applications index.

• At 8:30 AM, Retail sales for February is scheduled to be released.  The consensus is for a 0.4% increase in retail sales.

• At 10:00 AM, The March NAHB homebuilder survey. The consensus is for a reading of 81, down from 82.  Any number above 50 indicates that more builders view sales conditions as good than poor.

• At 2:00 PM, FOMC Meeting Announcement. The FOMC is expected to raise the Fed Funds rate by 25bps at this meeting.

• At 2:00 PM, FOMC Forecasts This will include the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) participants' projections of the appropriate target federal funds rate along with the quarterly economic projections.

• At 2:30 PM, Fed Chair Jerome Powell holds a press briefing following the FOMC announcement.

On COVID (focus on hospitalizations and deaths):

COVID Metrics
 NowWeek
Ago
Goal
Percent fully Vaccinated65.3%---≥70.0%1
Fully Vaccinated (millions)216.8---≥2321
New Cases per Day332,45839,184≤5,0002
Hospitalized321,26030,474≤3,0002
Deaths per Day31,1861,211≤502
1 Minimum to achieve "herd immunity" (estimated between 70% and 85%).
2my goals to stop daily posts,
37-day average for Cases, Currently Hospitalized, and Deaths
🚩 Increasing 7-day average week-over-week for Cases, Hospitalized, and Deaths
✅ Goal met.

COVID-19 Positive Tests per DayClick on graph for larger image.

This graph shows the daily (columns) and 7-day average (line) of deaths reported.

New cases, hospitalizations and deaths are still declining.