USD - Major events in the week ahead

Friday, May 19 2017

Events that marked the week:

On Monday Empire State Manufacturing Index figures were released. Business activity leveled off in New York State, according to firms responding to the May 2017 Empire State Manufacturing Survey. The headline general business conditions index fell six points to -1.0. The new orders index dropped to -4.4, suggesting a small decline in orders, and the shipments index edged down to 10.6, indicating that shipments increased at a slightly slower pace than in April.

Tuesday brought Housing Starts, Building Permits and Industrial Production data. Unexpected declines in U.S. new-home construction and building permits in April indicate the market is off to a weak start this quarter, government data showed Tuesday. Residential starts fell 2.6% to 1.17 mln annualized rate (forecast was 1.26 mln), lowest since November, following revised 1.2 mln pace in the prior month. Permits decreased 2.5% to 1.23 mln annualized pace (forecast was 1.27 million) from 1.26 mln. The decline in starts was driven by a 9.2% drop in multifamily construction.

Industrial production in April grew at the fastest monthly rate in more than three years, on the back of broad-based gains in the manufacturing sector. The Federal Reserve said Tuesday that industrial production grew 1% in April, topping the MarketWatch-compiled economist consensus for 0.5% growth. This is the fastest pace of growth since February 2014. March’s increase was revised down slightly to a 0.4% rise from an initially reported 0.5% gain. But industrial output has been up for three straight months.

Thursday was marked by Unemployment Claims and Philly Fed Manufacturing Index data. In the week ending May 13, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 232,000, a decrease of 4,000 from the previous week's unrevised level of 236,000. The 4-week moving average was 240,750, a decrease of 2,750 from the previous week's unrevised average of 243,500. The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 1.4 percent for the week ending May 6, unchanged from the previous week's unrevised rate.

The index for current manufacturing activity in the region increased from a reading of 22.0 in April to 38.8 this month. The index has been positive for 10 consecutive months. This month, the index recovered some of the declines of the previous two months, but it still remains slightly below its high reading of 43.3 in February.

This week markets will be looking at:

FOMC Meeting Minutes (Wednesday 20:00)

Unemployment Claims (Thursday 14:30)

Durable Goods Orders (Friday 14:30)

Prelim GDP (Friday 14:30)

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