The Daily Difference: Market Update April 23, 2014

This week's economic calendar... Tuesday, April 22, 2014

• Existing Home Sales. For six of the last seven months, this number has contracted. Last month was 4.6M, so the expectation is for another contraction to 4.56M. The silver lining is that supply has increased to 5.2 months, a healthy number given last summer’s supply constraints and rapidly rising prices. There are some high estimates, highlighting hopes weather and seasonality will lead to a quick snap back in the housing market.

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

•  New Home Sales. This number has exhibited a large amount of volatility, highlighted by a surprisingly large number in January. Last month’s number, 440K, is expected to be smaller than this month’s number (estimated: 455K) due to improved weather.

Thursday, April 24, 2014

• Durable Goods. The consensus is plain vanilla: 2.0%, but 0.9% ex-transportation. Auto sales have picked up after a cold winter season; as a result, most analysts expect the volatility to persist, but are anticipating strong auto numbers.
• Jobless Claims. The all-important 4-week moving average is expected to approach 300K. Nevertheless, the consensus is 313K this week due to “layoffs” in retail as a result of temporary holiday workers (Easter) filing for unemployment.