U.S. Economic News
September 19, 2019
U.S. Economic Indicators
The Conference Board’s Leading Economic Index (“LEI”) was unchanged in August following a 0.4% increase in July. Improvements in housing permits and credit conditions offset weakness from manufacturing and the interest rate spread. Conference Board Report
Existing home sales rose 1.3% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.49 million in August and are up 2.6% compared to a year ago. NAR notes that falling mortgage rates are luring buyers into the market, though low inventory numbers continue to push up prices. NAR Report
Initial jobless claims rose 2,000 to 208,000 last week. The four-week moving average fell 750 to 212,250. DOL Report
U.S. News
According to the Wall Street Journal, the split among Fed officials over the central bank’s quarter-point rate cut Wednesday is symptomatic of broader disagreement among officials about the extent to which trade tensions and slowing global growth will affect the U.S. economy. Statements by Fed Chairman Jerome Powell appear to leave the door open for further rate reductions amid concern that trade policy uncertainty may be weighing on business investment and manufacturing activity. WSJ
The Financial Times reports that the OECD has downgraded its global growth projection by 0.3 percentage point to 2.9 percent, the weakest performance since the 2008-09 financial crisis. It warned that the global economic outlook is “increasingly fragile and uncertain,” urging countries to remove tit-for-tat trade barriers and implement fiscal stimulus measures. FT