Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker. Charles Evans, president of the Chicago Fed. St. Louis Fed President James Bullard. All have said in recent days that the Federal Reserve is waiting on incoming President Donald Trump and Congress to act to clarify fiscal policy before moving to raise interest rates.
The Producer Price Index, a measure of factory level inflation, jumped by 5.5% in December from December 2015. That was above the 4.6% expected by economists surveyed by Bloomberg and a huge jump from the 3.3% year-over-year rate recorded in November. The increase was the fastest in more than five years
Minutes of the December 14 meeting of the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee released today January 4 show that the U.S. central bank would like to stick by its plan to raise interest rates only gradually in 2017, but the minutes also reveal bankers worried that higher government spending on infrastructure and deep tax cuts could overstimulate an economy already running near full employment.
Contracts to purchase previously owned U.S. homes fell in November, unexpectedly, according to the National Association of Realtors in Washington. Pending home sales declined by 2.5% after a 0.1% increase in October. This may seem out of step with news that purchases of new U.S. homes rose in November to the second-fastest pace in almost nine years, but it’s not
Tomorrow, Friday december 23, we get news on new home sales in November. Coming after some market weakness this week and before the long Christmas holiday (financial markets are closed on Monday, December 26), this report has the power to set the tone for a few days. Especially because U.S. mortgage rates are up since the Federal Reserve raised interest rates on December 14.
Good enough for government work. The U.S. economy added 178,000 jobs in November, the Labor Department announced today. That was up from a revised net add of 142,000 jobs in October but below the 180,000 expected by economists surveyed by Bloomberg. Official unemployment fell to 4.6%, an eight-year low
