Succinct Summation of Week’s Events 9.21.18 (plus Global Poverty)

The time has come again for the weekly summation, the main positive being that, as of Friday evening, there is still no major trade war and the main negative that leading economic indicators came in on the low end of expectations, which isn't much of a negative.  In other words, not a bad week.  As for the negative at the end of the list, I must have missed the news this week about whatever it is that's going on in Iceland.  And there's one more pretty good positive that's not on this list.  Published today on Barry Ritholtz's web site is this very encouraging graphic showing what appears to be some pretty dramatic progress during the last 20 years to reduce global poverty.  That's a pretty good piece of news for heading into the new week. 

Succinct Summation of Week’s Events 9.21.18

September 21, 2018 4:00pm by Barry Ritholtz

Succinct Summations for the week ending September 21st, 2018

Positives:

1. Despite myriad possibilities, POTUS did not start a trade war or cause a constitutional crisis (let’s hope this holds for a while).
2. Housing starts rose 9.2% m/o/m from 1.174M to 1.282M.
3. Jobless claims fell 3k from 204k to 201k, beating expectations.
4. MBA mortgage applications rose a seasonally adjusted 0.3% w/o/w, making the index 4% higher than it was a year ago.
5. Current account deficit decreased to 101.5B in the second quarter, lower than the first quarter’s 121.7B

Negatives:

1. Existing home sales came in at 5.34M, missing expectations for fifth month in a row.
2. Housing market index remains at 67 for Sep., the lowest reading since last Oct.
3. Same store sales rose 5.4% w/o/w, 0.9% lower than the previous 6.3% rise.
4. Index of economic leading indicators came in at 0.4%, on the low end of expectations.
5. Iceland wants to kill you. Or me. Or anyone who is not paying close attention to what they are doing.