US In the US housing market, single-family and multifamily starts and permits fell in May despite the still-elevated level of builder sentiment. Relieving some of the worries, existing home sales came in stronger than expected in May, rising 1.1% to a 5.62 million-unit pace. Existing home sales are used to calculate broker commissions in the [...]
US The FOMC raised its short-term target rate 25 basis points at its June meeting to 1.25%, and published an addendum to lay the foundation for normalising the Fed’s balance sheet, with the caveat economic activity “evolves broadly as anticipated.” It is that anticipation that is causing the latest divergence in views between the Fed [...]
US In the US, the most striking piece of data from this past week was the surge in job openings in April. Openings rose a sizeable 259,000, surpassing 6.0 million in total and marking a new all-time high for the series. This is an encouraging development, as the labor market continues to create jobs at [...]
US May’s NFP (nonfarm payroll) report showed that 138,000 jobs were added for the month, while the unemployment rate remained low at 4.3%. Among the industries adding the most jobs for the month were, professional services, education and health, and leisure and hospitality. The unemployment rate dipped to 4.3% as the labor force participation rate [...]
