Economic Update

Thomas Montalbano, Vicky Magginas

New Home Sales

+9.6% in January
Expected: 400k Actual: 468k

strongest annual rate since July 2008 Still Down Slightly YOY

Durable Goods
-1.0%, following a drop of 5.3 percent in December orders were up notably for fabricated metals and computer products Leading indicator of Industrial demand for the production of goods with long lives that take up to 3 months to make Up about 5 YoY

Jobless Claims
No improvement

initial claims up 14,000

New Claims Total : 348 K 4-week Moving Average :338.25 K Next week- employment report for February

Revised GDP
revised down to an annualized 2.4% for Q4 Compared to Q3:
Personal Consumption Exp: +2.6% Non-Residential Fixed Investment: +7.3% Exports: +9.4% Imports: +1.5% Federal Government Consumption Exp:-12.8%

2013 GDP: 1.9% CLICK FOR OFFICIAL REPORT

Janet Yellen& Weather

-Acknowledged weaker than expected data in jobs, housing, retail sales and industrial production -What we need to dois to try to get a firmer handle on exactly how much of that set of softer data can be explained by weather and what portion if any is due to a softer outlook -Suggests that she believes at least some of the recent bad data is due to weather -Underscores not only the importance of her upcoming public speeches, but also spring-time recovery -Has no plans as of now to alter tapering

Consumer Sentiment vs. Personal Consumption

The two have only a 4.5 percent correlation from 1978 through the present, meaning that knowing what happened to one tells you pretty much nothing about what happened to the other.

Things to look out for week of 3/3 & 3/10

3/3 ISM Manufacturing Index Construction Spending 3/4 Nothing Significant 3/5 ISM Non-MFG Index 3/6 Jobless Claims Factory Orders 3/7 Unemployment International Trade

3/10
Nothing Significant

3/11
Nothing Significant

3/12
EIA Petroleum Status Report (Energy Analysts)

3/13
Jobless Claims

3/14
PPI-FD (Inflationary pressures on producers) Consumer Sentiment (if you want)

Retail Sales

Import/Export Prices