Weekly Economic Report

This weeks calendar starts off slow and ends up with the "Biggie of the Week"

• Monday 28: No report
• Tuesday 29th: Consumer Confidence. Estimate is for 50.0, A reading below will support lower rates, a Reading above 50.4 may nudge rates higher. Investors usually are more interested in what the Consumer is doing, than how they say they are feeling... not an important number.
• Tuesday 29th: My Sons Birth Day! Should I get him a Wii?
• Wednesday 30th: No data to report
• Thursday 31st: 1 estimate of second Quarter GDP estimate is up 2%. Not likely to be a market mover but we may see rates creep up if the estimate is low. keep in mind that this is the first estimate, GDP is an over done number at times.
• Thursday: Initial Jobless claims for the previous week. Est. Down 11,000. If the number matches the estimate, no move in the market, if we see a sharp drop of 15,000 or more.... look OUT!
• Thursday: 2nd quarter Employment Cost Index. est +0.7%. Most likely a "ho-hum" number unless we see an increase over 1% which would indicate inflation pressure developing.
• Friday August 1: Our BIGGIE of the week, The Non Farm Payroll Report. Estimates: loss of 75,000 jobs, a 5.6% unemployment rate and an increase of +0.3% in average hourly earnings. Most likely will take a loss of 80k jobs and a 5.7% jobless rate for a significant move in rates
• Monday: Personal income, PCE and Factory orders... More on that next week.

As with last week, the movement in Oil and Stocks will dictate the movement in rates for the first few days of this week at least. Unfortunately the numbers show that Oil and Stocks will move higher this week... If the numbers don't lie this will be a big bump in the road for mortgage rates to get over.

As I mentioned above, Fridays employment data is the Big Number of the week.  Investors have priced in a pretty week employment picture.  If the data matches the prediction, not much will happen... but if the analysts screwed up and we see a stronger than anticipated report... Look OUT... there will be a heavy sell off leading to higher rates.

That is This weeks financial calendar. Last week my gut was telling me we would see some improvement and that did happen. This week I am not sure. On a positive note: The market opened "happy" this morning and we will probably see some improvement in rates today.

 I hope this helps you plan your week

Rob

Robert Rauf

WWW.RobertRaufHomeLoans.com