Succinct Summation of the Week's Events

Succinct Summation of the Week's Events:

Positives,

1)Headline and core PCE for July each rose .2% m/o/m as expected with the y/o/y gains of 2.5% and 2.6% respectively, unchanged with June. Goods prices y/o/y were dead flat at zero, staying around the pre Covid trend. Service prices grew by 3.7%, always the offset, vs 3.8% in June, 3.9% in May and 4% in the two prior months.

2)Apartment List said NEW rents fell .1% m/o/m in August "as the market remains sluggish thanks to a windfall of new supply." The y/o/y drop is .7% "and has now been in negative territory for over a full year. Despite this, the national median rent is still more than $200 per month higher than it was just a few years ago." The vacancy rate stood at 6.7%, the same level as in July but the most since August 2020.

3)Initial jobless claims were little changed w/o/w at 231k vs 233k last week and as expected when we include the slight revisions. The 4 week average fell to 232k from 236k as a print of 250k drops out of the calculation.

4)The August Conference Board Consumer Confidence index rose to 103.3 from 101.9 and that was 2.6 pts above the estimate. That’s also the best since February but still well below the February 2020 print of 132.6. The Present Situation was higher by 1.3 pts m/o/m and the Expectations component by a like amount. Of note, one yr inflation expectations fell to 4.9% from 5.3% and that is the lowest since March 2020. The bottom line from the Conference Board, “Overall consumer confidence rose in August but remained within the narrow range that has prevailed over the past two years. Consumers continued to express mixed feelings in August.”

5)The final August UoM Consumer Confidence index remained soft but at 67.9 it is up from 66.4 in July and compares with 68.2 in June. One year inflation expectations fell one tenth m/o/m to 2.8% while the 5-10 yr view was unchanged at 3%.