The week’s economic calendar
Untitled DocumentTuesday, Feb. 19
Posted 6:00 p.m. Eastern
Wednesday releases highlight the week’s economic calendar
In a holiday-shortened week, all of the significant economic releases are squeezed into Wednesday. Starting bright and early at 8:30 a.m., we’ll get the Consumer Price Index, or CPI, housing starts and building permits, all for January. In the afternoon comes the Fed’s meeting minutes from the January get-together.
The Fed minutes might make for interesting reading, for geeks like me anyway, as the meeting came amid two interest rate cuts in a nine-day span. However, don’t expect any revelations, as Bernanke’s appearance before the Senate Banking Committee last week was similarly lacking in nuggets of new information.
The housing numbers won’t surprise anyone if they’re ugly, but will undoubtedly be cause for more agita in financial markets. The real key could be the CPI. With mortgage rates having spiked in the past week, tame inflation numbers could be the catalyst to mortgage rates floating lower, but a continuation of the troubling trend in core prices could keep mortgage rates on the move.
As far as Fed policy, tame inflation numbers will provide cover for the Fed’s next rate cut, while an unsettling uptick would get the notice of inflation hawks on the FOMC — if any still remain.