Succinct Summation of Week’s Events for 8.17.18 (plus the low cost of Medicaid)

Submitted below is the usual Sunday night weekly summation, the plus side including high nonfarm productivity, much higher retail sales than expected, and consumer sentiment coming in at 97.9.  We continue to have the irony that on the minus side industrial production was much lower than expected and same store sales rose much lower than expected.  This Sunday's bonus is a neat little graphic that shows that the cost of paying for low income people's Medicaid has actually become lower than subsidizing private health insurance, for those who may think that this program for the poor is not cost efficient.  Hope everyone had a great weekend. We're certainly in for some pleasant weather this week.

Succinct Summation of Week’s Events for 8.17.18

August 17, 2018 5:00pm by Barry Ritholtz

Succinct Summations for the week ending August 17th, 2018

Positives:

1. Jobless claims fell to 212k w/o/w, beating the expected 215k.
2. Nonfarm productivity shows a 2.9% annualized rate q/o/q, beating expectations.
3. Retail sales rose .5% in July, beating the expected .1% rise.
4. Consumer sentiment remains at high levels, coming in at 97.9 for July.

Negatives:

1. Housing starts came in at 1.168M in July, lower than the expected 1.271M.
2. MBA home mortgage applications fell a seasonally adjusted 3% w/o/w, the fifth consecutive weekly decline in a row.
3. Industrial production rose .1% m/o/m, down from the previous rise of .6%.
4. Same store sales rose 4.5% w/o/w, lower than the previous 5.6% rise.
5. Business inventories rose .1% m/o/m, lower than the previous .4%.

From The Big Picture blog, Sun 8-19-18