The Big Week Ahead

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Three housing related reports will be released this week: existing home sales on Monday, Case-Shiller house prices on Tuesday, and new home sales on Wednesday.

On Monday, the April Chicago Fed National Activity Index will be released at 8:30 AM. This is a composite index of other data. At 10 AM the National Association for Realtors (NAR) will release the April existing home sales report. The consensus is for an increase to 5.6 million sales in April as a seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR). Also on Monday, the DOT will probably release the Vehicle Miles Driven for March. This has been showing declining Year-over-year miles driven.

On Tuesday, the March Case-Shiller house price index will be released at 9:00 AM. The consensus is for a slight decline in the house price index. At 10:00 AM, the Conference Board will release Consumer Confidence for May (consensus is for an increase to 59). Also on Tuesday, the FHFA house price index, and the Richmond Fed survey will be released.

On Wednesday, the April Durable Goods Orders will be released at 8:30 AM. The consensus is for a 1.5% increase. At 10 AM, the Census Bureau will release the April New Home sales report. The consensus is for an increase to 425K (SAAR) from 411K in March. Since new home sales are reported when a contract is signed, April was the last month that reported sales will be positively impacted by the tax credit.

On Thursday, the first revision of the Q1 GDP report will be released at 8:30 AM. The consensus is for an upward revision to 3.5% from the initially reported 3.2%. Also on Thursday, the closely watched initial weekly unemployment claims will be released. Consensus is for a decline to 450K from 471K last week.

And on Friday, the BEA will release the Personal Income and Outlayreport for April at 8:30 AM. Also on Friday the Chicago Purchasing Managers Index for May will be released. And of course the FDIC will probably have another busy Friday afternoon ...

There will be several Fed speeches this week, and a few other economic releases (trucking index, restaurant index).