US New home sales jumped 12.4% in July. In contrast, existing home sales fell last month, and look to be restrained by low inventories and deteriorating affordability. The increase puts sales back at levels that have not been seen since before the recession. While new home sales can be noisy from month to month, sales [...]
US Market participants are still confounded on the US Fed’s next policy move. Slack is diminishing and monthly indicators suggest economic activity is gaining momentum – a stage in the cycle that should warrant consensus from Fed officials on normalising the target rate. Federal Reserve officials have gone out of their way last week to [...]
US Productivity growth has been quite dismal in the current economic cycle. As the key determinant of a prosperous economy, the exceptionally weak trend in productivity does not bode well for the long-term economic outlook, but does support hiring and income gains in the short term. As the Federal Reserve monitors incoming data to guide [...]
US Despite a dismal Q2 real GDP reading, the jump in US NFP (non farm payrolls) in July and upward revisions to previous months’ data suggest the overall economy has not lost any steam. Coming in much better than expected, NFP rose by 255,000 jobs, with the unemployment rate unchanged at 4.9%. With upward revisions [...]
