by Calculated Risk on 2/03/2025 08:11:00 AM
Monday, February 03, 2025
Housing Feb 3rd Weekly Update: Inventory Down 0.3% Week-over-week, Up 27.7% Year-over-year
Sunday, February 02, 2025
Monday: ISM Manufacturing, Construction Spending, Vehicle Sales
by Calculated Risk on 2/02/2025 07:23:00 PM
Weekend:
• Schedule for Week of February 2, 2025
Monday:
• At 10:00 AM ET, ISM Manufacturing Index for January. The consensus is for the ISM to be at 49.5, up from 49.3 in December.
• Also at 10:00 AM, Construction Spending for December. The consensus is for a 0.1% increase in construction spending.
• All day, Light vehicle sales for January. Sales were at 16.8 million in December (Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate). Wards expects vehicle sales to decrease to 15.6 million SAAR in January.
• At 2:00 PM, Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices (SLOOS).
From CNBC: Pre-Market Data and Bloomberg futures S&P 500 are down 95 and DOW futures are down 470 (fair value).
Oil prices were down over the last week with WTI futures at $74.05 per barrel and Brent at $76.39 per barrel. A year ago, WTI was at $72, and Brent was at $80 - so WTI oil prices are up about 3% year-over-year.
Here is a graph from Gasbuddy.com for nationwide gasoline prices. Nationally prices are at $3.05 per gallon. A year ago, prices were at $3.15 per gallon, so gasoline prices are down $0.10 year-over-year.
Hotels: Occupancy Rate Decreased 3.4% Year-over-year
by Calculated Risk on 2/02/2025 08:25:00 AM
As expected with the MLK Day holiday, the U.S. hotel industry reported mixed year-over-year comparisons, according to CoStar’s latest data through 25 January. ...The following graph shows the seasonal pattern for the hotel occupancy rate using the four-week average.
119-25 January 2025 (percentage change from comparable week in 2024):
• Occupancy: 54.3% (-3.4%)
• Average daily rate (ADR): US$154.21 (+3.4%)
• Revenue per available room (RevPAR): US$83.74 (-0.2%)
emphasis added
The red line is for 2025, blue is the median, and dashed light blue is for 2024. Dashed purple is for 2018, the record year for hotel occupancy.
Saturday, February 01, 2025
Update: Lumber Prices Up 6% YoY
by Calculated Risk on 2/01/2025 05:15:00 PM
This might be something to watch again. Here is another monthly update on lumber prices.
SPECIAL NOTE: The CME group discontinued the Random Length Lumber Futures contract on May 16, 2023. I switched to a physically-delivered Lumber Futures contract that was started in August 2022. Unfortunately, this impacts long term price comparisons since the new contract was priced about 24% higher than the old random length contract for the period when both contracts were available.
This graph shows CME random length framing futures through August 2022 (blue), and the new physically-delivered Lumber Futures (LBR) contract starting in August 2022 (Red).
Real Estate Newsletter Articles this Week: New Home Sales Increase to 698,000 Annual Rate in December
by Calculated Risk on 2/01/2025 02:11:00 PM
At the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter this week:
Click on graph for larger image.
• New Home Sales Increase to 698,000 Annual Rate in December
• Case-Shiller: National House Price Index Up 3.8% year-over-year in November
• Inflation Adjusted House Prices 1.1% Below 2022 Peak
• Freddie Mac House Price Index Increased in December; Up 4.0% Year-over-year
• Final Look at Local Housing Markets in December and a Look Ahead to January Sales
This is usually published 4 to 6 times a week and provides more in-depth analysis of the housing market.
Schedule for Week of February 2, 2025
by Calculated Risk on 2/01/2025 08:11:00 AM
The key reports scheduled for this week are the January employment report and the December trade deficit.
Other key indicators include the January ISM manufacturing index and January vehicle sales.
10:00 AM: ISM Manufacturing Index for January. The consensus is for the ISM to be at 49.5, up from 49.3 in December.
10:00 AM: Construction Spending for December. The consensus is for a 0.1% increase in construction spending.
This graph shows light vehicle sales since the BEA started keeping data in 1967. The dashed line is the December sales rate.
2:00 PM: Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices (SLOOS).
This graph shows job openings (black line), hires (purple), Layoff, Discharges and other (red column), and Quits (light blue column) from the JOLTS.
Jobs openings increased in November to 8.10 million from 7.84 million in October.
The number of job openings (black) were down 9% year-over-year. Quits were down 13% year-over-year.
7:00 AM ET: The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) will release the mortgage purchase applications index.
8:15 AM: The ADP Employment Report for January. This report is for private payrolls only (no government). The consensus is for 150,000 payroll jobs added in January, up from 122,000 added in December.
This graph shows the U.S. trade deficit, with and without petroleum, through the most recent report. The blue line is the total deficit, and the black line is the petroleum deficit, and the red line is the trade deficit ex-petroleum products.
The consensus is the trade deficit to be $87.0 billion. The U.S. trade deficit was at $78.2 billion in November.
10:00 AM: ISM Services Index for January.
8:30 AM: The initial weekly unemployment claims report will be released. The consensus is for a increase to 214 thousand from 207 thousand last week.
There were 256,000 jobs added in December, and the unemployment rate was at 4.1%.
This graph shows the jobs added per month since January 2021.
NOTE: For the household survey, new population controls will be used - and this will boost overall household employment. For the establishment survey, the annual benchmark revision will be included, lowering past job growth.
10:00 AM: University of Michigan's Consumer sentiment index (Preliminary for January).
Friday, January 31, 2025
January 31st COVID Update: COVID in Wastewater Increasing
by Calculated Risk on 1/31/2025 07:38:00 PM
Note: Mortgage rates are from MortgageNewsDaily.com and are for top tier scenarios.
COVID Metrics | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Now | Week Ago | Goal | ||
Deaths per Week🚩 | 773 | 628 | ≤3501 | |
1my goals to stop weekly posts. 🚩 Increasing number weekly for Deaths. ✅ Goal met. |
This graph shows the weekly (columns) number of deaths reported since Jan 2023.
Initial Q1 GDP Tracking: Mid-to-high 2% Range
by Calculated Risk on 1/31/2025 02:09:00 PM
From Goldman:
We launched our Q1 GDP tracking estimate at +2.6% (quarter-over-quarter annualized) and our Q1 domestic final sales estimate at +2.3%. We launched our past-quarter GDP tracking estimate at +2.3%, in line with the advance reading. [Jan 31st estimate]And from the Atlanta Fed: GDPNow
emphasis added
The initial GDPNow model estimate for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the first quarter of 2025 is 2.9 percent on January 31. The initial estimate of last quarter's real GDP growth rate released by the US Bureau of Economic Analysis on January 30 was 2.3 percent, the same as the final GDPNow model nowcast after rounding. [Jan 31st estimate]
Freddie Mac House Price Index Increased in December; Up 4.0% Year-over-year
by Calculated Risk on 1/31/2025 10:42:00 AM
Today, in the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: Freddie Mac House Price Index Increased in December; Up 4.0% Year-over-year
A brief excerpt:
Freddie Mac reported that its “National” Home Price Index (FMHPI) increased 0.54% month-over-month on a seasonally adjusted (SA) basis in December. On a year-over-year basis, the National FMHPI was up 4.0% in December, up from up 3.9% YoY in November. The YoY increase peaked at 19.0% in July 2021, and for this cycle, bottomed at up 0.9% YoY in May 2023. ...There is much more in the article!
For cities (Core-based Statistical Areas, CBSA), here are the 30 cities with the largest declines from the peak, seasonally adjusted. Austin continues to be the worst performing city. However, 6 of the 7 cities with the largest price declines are in Florida (and Florida has 14 of the 30 cities with the largest price declines).
Personal Income increased 0.4% in December; Spending increased 0.7%
by Calculated Risk on 1/31/2025 08:30:00 AM
The BEA released the Personal Income and Outlays report for December:
Personal income increased $92.0 billion (0.4 percent at a monthly rate) in December, according to estimates released today by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. Disposable personal income (DPI)—personal income less personal current taxes—increased $79.7 billion (0.4 percent) and personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $133.6 billion (0.7 percent).The December PCE price index increased 2.6 percent year-over-year (YoY), up from 2.4 percent YoY in November, and down from the recent peak of 7.0 percent in June 2022.
Personal outlays—the sum of PCE, personal interest payments, and personal current transfer payments—increased $129.5 billion in December. Personal saving was $843.2 billion in December and the personal saving rate—personal saving as a percentage of disposable personal income—was 3.8 percent.
emphasis added
The following graph shows real Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) through December 2024 (2017 dollars). Note that the y-axis doesn't start at zero to better show the change.
The dashed red lines are the quarterly levels for real PCE.
Personal income was at expectations, and PCE was slightly above expectations.