Weighing The Week Ahead: An Avalanche Of Housing Data

 | Mar 25, 2019 01:50AM ET

It is a big economic calendar with almost every report on housing released in a single week. This is the result of the shutdown delay. Now we can get more clarity on this important sector. Pundits will be asking:

Are lower mortgage rates helping home sales?

h2 Last Week Recap/h2

In Fed expert Tim Duy explains the significance of this change.

It is hard to understate the importance of this shift. The Fed’s models haven’t worked this way in the past. In previous iterations of the forecasts, the expectation of unemployment remaining below its natural rate would trigger inflationary pressures. To stave off those pressures, the Fed perceived the need to raise rates above neutral to slow the economy enough to nudge unemployment upwards. Now the Fed believes it can let unemployment hold persistently below the natural rate without triggering inflation and without Fed policy becoming restrictive.

This was the big news of the week, and it was bullish for stocks. I’ll comment on the negative reaction in my Final Thought.

h2 The Story in One Chart/h2

I always start my personal review of the week by looking at a great chart. This week I am featuring Jill Mislinski, who packs a lot of information into one chart.