Data Watch - March 25th and 26th

CANADA

yesterday, the Teranet-National Bank national home price index fell 1.6% in January, now down 2.4% YoY and 5.5% from the peak

US

new home sales were up slightly in February to 337k, with upward revisions to both January and December; inventories fell by 2.9% and 30% from a year-ago, but months' supply remains very elevated at 12.2 due to the low pace of sales, less than one-quarter of the 1.4M peak and one-half of normal sales activity

durable goods surprised with a gain of 3.4% in February, with core capital goods doing even better at +6.6%; these gains came, however, off of lower previous-month lows, as January's result was revised down from -5.2% to -7.3%; total and core durable goods orders remain down 29% and 21% YoY, respectively; the inventories-to-shipments ratio fell slightly to 1.88, as inventories fell for the 5th consecutive month, but this time fell by more than shipments, which have fallen for the 7th straight month

MBA mortgage applications were up again, but predominantly refis; refis are up 50% from a year ago, while purchase apps are down by almost a third

Q4 GDP was marked down to -6.3%, worse than the previous -6.2% estimate, but not as bad as the -6.6% expectation; corporate profits fell 16.5% QoQ and 21.5% YoY

initial jobless claims up as expected to 652k, a level its been hovering around for the last 5 weeks, not yet matching the 1982 highs, while continuing claims exceeded expectations, rising to 5560k, now well above the 1974 and 1982 peaks (albeit not population-adjusted), and showing no evidence yet of stabilizing


INTERNATIONAL

German IFO fell as expected to a new low in March of 82.1; current conditions also hit a new low, although the expectations component rose for the 3rd straight month

UK yields ramped higher after a failed long gilt auction, despite BoE QE, perhaps because King had the day before said that they might not use the full 75B pound allotment to fund the QE program

Eurozone M3 came in at +5.9% YoY, which is the lowest its been since 2004, off from the 12.3% peak

in the UK, business investment for Q4 wasn't as bad as expected, but retail sales for February were much worse, now up just 0.4% YoY, lowest since 1995

Japanese CPI and retail trade data comes out this evening; the former is expected to be -0.1% YoY, the latter -3%