Succinct Summation of the Week's Events

Succinct Summation of the Week's Events:

Positives,

1)Existing home sales in December, likely reflecting contact signings in the late summer, early fall, totaled 4.24mm. Though still depressed around 30 yr lows, it was a bit above expectations of 4.20mm and up from 4.15mm in the month before.

2)In the US January PMI, manufacturing actually ticked up to 50.1, up .7 pts m/o/m, "as factories await support from the new policies of the Trump administration."

3)As the Houthi's said they were going to stop targeting ships in the Red Sea, for now, the Shanghai to Rotterdam container route price fell by 19% w/o/w to the lowest since October. They also fell for the trips to NY and LA but less so. Maersk though did say today, "Due to the continued tensions in the region, the security risk of commercial vessels transiting the Red Sea and Bab-el-Mandeb strait remains high." And why they aren't going back their just yet.

4)From SL Green: "On job creation, the city's OMB is forecasting about 38,000 new office using jobs in 2025. Those jobs will be coming out of the finance, business services and IT sectors. That translates into millions and millions of square feet of new absorption for each one of those bodies and those are not work from home bodies for the most part...Combine that with the fact that onsite attendance is rising every month as companies are calling people back to the office four and five days a week, we expect to see very strong demand for office space throughout 2025."

5)From American Airlines: "Passenger revenue strength throughout the fourth quarter was broad based. In the fourth quarter, American's y/o/y Domestic, Atlantic, Pacific and total passenger unit revenue results led US network carriers...I see continued strength domestically and the strong dollar is absolutely going to have an impact on buying and travel to Europe this summer. So we take a look to March and as we look to some of our peak periods, spring break and getting into the summer, I see robust demand across the board."

6)From Ally Financial: "After a year which our financial results were pressured from a combination of volatile interest rates and a consumer burdened by the cumulative effects of inflation, fourth quarter results were in line with or favorable to the updated guidance we provided in October...We continue to see solid credit performance in our commercial portfolios in the fourth quarter, resulting in zero net charge-offs in 2024...As we continue to be further remote from the unprecedented effects of the pandemic, including historically high inflation, we're seeing improving trends in consumer performance."