2008-04-16 US Economic Releases

MBA Mortgage Applications
Bloomberg Global Confidence
Consumer Price Index
Housing Starts
Building Permits
Industrial Production
Capacity Utilization

MBAVPRCH Index (Apr 11)

Survey	n/a
Actual	381.6
Prior	384.7
Revised	n/a

Holding in its new, lower range.

MBAVREFI Index (Apr 11)

Survey	n/a
Actual	2866.0
Prior	2724.7
Revised	n/a

Doing ok in this prime time for resets, which are peaking and then falling off.

Bloomberg Global Confidence (Apr)

Survey	n/a
Actual	14.54
Prior	13.08
Revised	n/a

Still down, but signs of a bottom.

In my humble opinion, inflation is ripping, and the Fed’s in a very bad place. April’s food and energy price hikes, along with hosts of others, and the weaker USD all are pointing to an upward surge for prices on a forward looking basis.The Fed’s forecasting models should be showing higher inflation as well.And futures markets continue to be an unreliable forecasting tool for the Fed.

Consumer Price Index MoM (Mar)

Survey	0.3%
Actual	0.3%
Prior	0.0%
Revised	n/a

CPI Ex Food & Energy MoM (Mar)

Survey	0.2%
Actual	0.2%
Prior	0.0%
Revised	n/a

Consumer Price Index YoY (Mar)

Survey	4.0%
Actual	4.0%
Prior	4.0%
Revised	n/a

CPI Ex Food & Energy YoY (Mar)

Survey	2.4%
Actual	2.4%
Prior	2.3%
Revised	n/a

From Karim:

Headline/Core divergence->limited passthrough

Headline 0.343% and stays at 4% y/y

Core rises 0.152% (after 0.04% last month), showing limited pass-through from headline and even more limited pass-through from wholesale level (PPI from yday).

Core rises from 2.3% to 2.4%, equates to about 1.9-2.0% on core PCE basis due to measurement differences

Food up 0.2% and gas up 1.3%

OER up 0.2%, apparel down 1.3%, vehicles down 0.1%

Lodging away from home down 0.6% and medical up only 0.1%, a bit below trend

Housing starts not looking good. The glimmer of hope is that prior months have been revised up for the last two reports, so there’s a chance this number could be revised substantially as well.