Weekend:
• Schedule for Week of August 18, 2019

Monday:
• No major economic releases scheduled.

From CNBC: Pre-Market Data and Bloomberg futures: S&P 500 are up 15 and DOW futures are up 150 (fair value).

Oil prices were up over the last week with WTI futures at $55.23 per barrel and Brent at $59.07 barrel.  A year ago, WTI was at $66, and Brent was at $71 – so oil prices are down about 15% year-over-year.

Here is a graph from Gasbuddy.com for nationwide gasoline prices. Nationally prices are at $2.60 per gallon. A year ago prices were at $2.83 per gallon, so gasoline prices are down 23 cents year-over-year.

From HotelNewsNow.com: STR: US hotel results for week ending 10 August

The U.S. hotel industry reported mostly negative year-over-year results in the three key performance metrics during the week of 4-10 August 2019, according to data from STR.

In comparison with the week of 5-11 August 2018, the industry recorded the following:

• Occupancy: -1.4% to 74.1%
• Average daily rate (ADR): +0.4% to US$133.36
• Revenue per available room (RevPAR): -1.0% at US$98.88
emphasis added

The following graph shows the seasonal pattern for the hotel occupancy rate using the four week average.

Click on graph for larger image.

The red line is for 2019, dash light blue is 2018 (record year), blue is the median, and black is for 2009 (the worst year probably since the Great Depression for hotels).

Occupancy has been solid in 2019, close to-date compared to the previous 4 years – but has been a little soft YoY in recent weeks.

Seasonally, the occupancy rate will now start to decline as the peak summer travel season ends.

Data Source: STR, Courtesy of HotelNewsNow.com

The key reports this week are July New and Existing Home Sales.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell speaks on Friday at the Jackson Hole Symposium.

Also this week, the BLS will release the preliminary employment benchmark revision, and the CBO will release updated budget and economic projections

—– Monday, Aug 19th —–
No major economic releases scheduled.

—– Tuesday, Aug 20th —–
No major economic releases scheduled.

—– Wednesday, Aug 21st —–
7:00 AM ET: The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) will release the results for the mortgage purchase applications index.

10:00 AM: Existing Home Sales for July from the National Association of Realtors (NAR). The consensus is for 5.39 million SAAR, up from 5.27 million last month.

The graph shows existing home sales from 1994 through the report last month.

Housing economist Tom Lawler expects the NAR to report 5.40 million SAAR.

10:00 AM: the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) will release the preliminary estimate of the upcoming annual benchmark revision.

11:00 AM: CBO to Release Updated Budget and Economic Projections

During the day: The AIA’s Architecture Billings Index for July (a leading indicator for commercial real estate).

2:00 PM: FOMC Minutes, Meeting of July 30-31, 2019

—– Thursday, Aug 22nd —–
8:30 AM: The initial weekly unemployment claims report will be released.  The consensus is for 215 thousand initial claims, down from 220 thousand last week.

11:00 AM: the Kansas City Fed manufacturing survey for August.

—– Friday, Aug 23rd —–
10:00 AM: New Home Sales for July from the Census Bureau.

This graph shows New Home Sales since 1963. The dashed line is the sales rate for last month.

The consensus is for 645 thousand SAAR, down from 646 thousand in June.

10:00 AM: Speech, Fed Chair Jerome Powell, Challenges for Monetary Policy, At the Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium: Challenges for Monetary Policy, Jackson Hole, Wyo.

From housing economist Tom Lawler: Early Read on Existing Home Sales in July

Based on publicly-available local realtor/MLS reports released across the country through today, I project that existing home sales as estimated by the National Association of Realtors ran at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.40 million in July, up 2.5% from June’s preliminary estimate and up 0.2% from last July’s seasonally adjusted pace.

On the inventory front, local realtor/MLS data, as well as data from other inventory trackers, suggest that the inventory of existing homes for sale at the end of June should be about 1.6% lower than last July.

Finally, local realtor/MLS data suggest that the median US existing single-family home sales price last month was up by about 4.7% from last July.

CR Note: Existing home sales for July are scheduled to be released on Wednesday, August 21st. The early consensus is the NAR will report sales of 5.40 million SAAR (same as Lawler).