Succinct Summation of Week’s Events 12.25.20 (plus the federal budget)

Below please find the usual weekly summation, this week being abbreviated due to the holidays. Nonetheless, the positives and negatives have remained mostly unchanged, the main positive being the distribution of the vaccine, this week going to 3.3 million Americans. The main negative besides being another terrible pandemic week with more than 3,000 deaths daily is the president creating more chaos in vetoing the relief  bill.  (As of Sunday night, the news is he has now signed the bill!) 

The bonus this holiday weekend is a terrific graphic posted yesterday on the Big Picture web site showing in one simple eye-shot the entire federal budget, income and outflows. It's the final week of 2020. This very difficult year will soon be history. 

Succinct Summation of Week’s Events 12.25.20

December 24, 2020 3:00pm by Barry Ritholtz

Succinct Summations for the week ending December 25th, 2020

Positives:

1. Covid-19 shots go to 3.3 million people, >1.2 million Americans
2. President’s attempt at overturning election fails (a win nonetheless).
3. Home refinance apps rose 4% w/o/w, above previous increase of 1%.
4. Jobless claims fell 89k w/o/w from 892k to 803k.
5. FHFA House price index rose 1.5% w/o/w, above expectations.
6. Durable goods orders rose 0.9% w/o/w, above expectations.

Negatives:

1. President Chaos vetoes Covid relief bill.
2. Terrible pandemic week:  >210,000 cases, >3,000 deaths daily.
3. Corporate profits rose 10.3% y/o/y, below the previous increase of 10.7%.
4. Existing home sales annual rate of 6.690M, below expectations.
5. Home mortgage apps fell 5.0% w/o/w, below previous increase of 2.0%.
6. New home sales came in at an annual rate of 841k, below expectations.