Today's Economic Data Docket - Retails Sales, Claims, Inventories, Budget Balance

Today's key events in the US, as opposed to Europe, where in a few minutes the ECB is expected to do nothing.

8:30: Retail sales (December): Holiday sales results. Final results for the holiday shopping season are due with the December retail sales report. News on major chain-store retail sales for the month was a bit disappointing relative to expectations, but does not include sales from new stores or from online-only retailers that will be included in the Census Bureau’s retail report. Warm weather may also have helped boost sales last month. Goldman forecasts an above-consensus increase in core/control retail sales (ex-autos, gas and building materials) of 0.5% (month-over-month).
Total: GS: +0.5%; Consensus: +0.3%; Last: +0.2%.
Ex-autos: GS: +0.5%; Consensus: +0.3%; Last: +0.2%.
Ex-autos, gas & building materials: GS: +0.5%; Consensus: +0.3%; Last: +0.2%.

8:30: Jobless claims (Week of January 7). Jobless claims have moved down significantly over the past 2-3 months, suggesting an improvement in labor market conditions. Consensus forecasts are for a roughly flat reading for the first week of January.
Consensus:  375,000; Last: 372,000.

10:00: Business inventories (November). Not a market mover, but the retail inventory component could have implications for our tracking estimate of Q4 GDP growth (which we revised down to 3.2% earlier this week on soft wholesale inventories).
Consensus: +0.4%; last +0.8%.

14:00: The US budget balance (December). The CBO estimates that the December budget deficit increased to $84bn from $78bn in the same month last year. However, most of the increase reflected shifts in the timing of certain payments, according to the CBO. Without these shifts the deficit would have been about unchanged.
CBO: -$84bn; Consensus: -$84bn; Last (Dec 2010): -$78bn.

Comments

[james larson]

I just scanned the new claims numbers...particularly the real...unadjusted numbers.  Sure am glad my name isnt Seasonally Adjusted...you know...me and the other 250,000 were told dont really exist.

http://www.dol.gov/opa/media/press/eta/ui/current.htm

[Tetres]

Caveat Emptor (buyer beware) during the past 6-weeks we have seen a seasonally adjusted (I call it fuzzy math) under accounting of over 780,252 (average of 130,042 a week) initial claims...meaning that the actual numbers unadjusted came in significantly worse....this is a huge distortion of the actual numbers

Week of 01/12.....decent pro forma reduction in the headline number vs. actual of 243,381

·        Seasonally Adjusted Data:  In the week ending January 7, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 399,000, an increase of 24,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 375,000. The 4-week moving average was 381,750, an increase of 7,750 from the previous week's revised average of 374,000.

·        Unadjusted Data:  The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 642,381 in the week ending January 7, an increase of 102,314 from the previous week. There were 773,499 initial claims in the comparable week in 2011.

Week of 01/05.....decent pro forma reduction in the headline number vs. actual of 163,112

·        Seasonally Adjusted Data:  In the week ending December 31, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 372,000, a decrease of 15,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 387,000. The 4-week moving average was 373,250, a decrease of 3,250 from the previous week's revised average of 376,500.was 375,000, a decrease of 5,750 from the previous week's revised average of 380,750.

·        Unadjusted Data:  The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 535,112 in the week ending December 31, an increase of 37,423 from the previous week. There were 578,904 initial claims in the comparable week in 2010.

Week of 12/29.....decent pro forma reduction in the headline number vs. actual of 109,364

·         Seasonally Adjusted Data:  In the week ending December 24, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 381,000, an increase of 15,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 366,000. The 4-week moving average was 375,000, a decrease of 5,750 from the previous week's revised average of 380,750.

·        Unadjusted Data:  The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 490,364 in the week ending December 24, an increase of 69,261 from the previous week. There were 525,710 initial claims in the comparable week in 2010.

Week of 12/22.....decent pro forma reduction in the headline number vs. actual of 54,466

·        Seasonally Adjusted Data:  In the week ending December 17, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 364,000, a decrease of 4,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 368,000. The 4-week moving average was 380,250, a decrease of 8,000 from the previous week's revised average of 388,250.

·        Unadjusted Data:  The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 418,466 in the week ending December 17, a decrease of 17,256 from the previous week. There were 495,548 initial claims in the comparable week in 2010.

Week of 12/15.....great pro forma reduction in the headline number vs. actual of 67,287

·        Seasonally Adjusted Data: In the week ending December 10, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 366,000, a decrease of 19,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 385,000. The 4-week moving average was 387,750, a decrease of 6,500 from the previous week's revised average of 394,250.

·        Unadjusted Data:  The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 433,287 in the week ending December 10, a decrease of 95,506 from the previous week. There were 491,776 initial claims in the comparable week in 2010.

Week of 12/08.....great pro forma reduction in the headline number vs. actual of 142,642

·        Seasonally Adjusted Data:   In the week ending December 3, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 381,000, a decrease of 23,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 404,000. The 4-week moving average was 393,250, a decrease of 3,000 from the previous week's revised average of 396,250. 

·        Unadjusted Data:  The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 523,642 in the week ending December 3, an increase of 151,002 from the previous week. There were 585,711 initial claims in the comparable week in 2010.