USA • Nonfarm employment finally broke out to the upside, with employers adding 850,000 jobs in June. Revisions to the prior two months' data were fairly small, resulting in 15,000 more jobs. Job gains were fairly broad based during June, but the reopening of public schools at a time that they would normally be closing [...]
USA • Nonfarm payrolls rose 850K in June, more than the +720K print expected by consensus. Adding to the good news, the prior months’ results were upgraded by 15K. The private sector added 662K jobs. Employment in the goods sector crept up 20K as a small decline for construction (-7K) was more than offset by [...]
USA • Nominal personal income declined 2.0% in May, slightly better than consensus expectations calling for a 2.5% decline. The wage/salary component of income rose 0.8%, while disposable income dropped 2.3%. Nominal personal spending, meanwhile, was flat in the month, slightly worse than the median economist forecast calling for a +0.4% print. Adjusted for inflation, [...]
USA • Retail sales fell 1.3% during the month. The magnitude of the decline in sales was a bit more than anticipated; however, positive revisions to April's sales cushioned the blow. The dip in sales for the month is largely explained by consumers redirecting their spending away from the cars, home furnishing and other "stay-at-home" [...]
USA • The Consumer Price Index rose 0.6% in May after climbing 0.8% the prior month. The result was one tick stronger than expected by consensus. The energy component was flat in the month, with gasoline prices slipping 0.7%. The cost of food, for its part, increased 0.4%. The core CPI, which excludes food and [...]
GLOBAL • Oil prices rises to the highest level in two years. This week OPEC stuck to the current plan of gradually normalising oil output. This led to Brent rising to just below USD72/bbl, as the market seems more concerned about risk of tight oil market in coming months than OPEC normalising output too fast. [...]
USA • The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index dipped 0.3 point to 117.2, its first decline since December 2020. This essentially flat print was characterized by increased confidence in the present situation (+12.4 points to 144.3) but decreased optimism about the future (-8.8 to 99.1). Where the current conditions subindex is concerned, the percentage of [...]
USA • Housing starts moved from a 15-year high of 1,733K in March to 1,569K in April (seasonally adjusted and annualized). This was significantly below the 1,704K print expected by analysts. The monthly decline was driven by the single-family category, where starts dropped 13.4% to 1,087K. Starts in the multi-family segment, meanwhile, crawled up 0.8% [...]
USA • The Consumer Price Index rose 0.8% in April after climbing 0.6% the prior month. This result blew past consensus expectations calling for just a +0.2% print. The energy component edged down 0.1% thanks in part to a 1.4% decline in the gasoline segment. The cost of food, for its part, rose 0.1%. The [...]
USA • Construction spending rose 0.2% to US$1,513.1 billion, which is 5.0% above the February 2020 level. Residential spending increased 1.7% MoM to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of US$725.2 billion. Spending on new single-family homes rose 2.0% m/m and 26.7% y/y. Spending on new multi-family homes dipped 0.3% MoM. Private non-residential activity fell 0.9% [...]
