Note: China’s GDP was reported at 6.9% year-over-year, at expectations.
Weekend:
• Schedule for Week of January 17, 2016
• Lawler: Early Read on Existing Home Sales in December and Post-Mortem on November
• Update: Predicting the Next Recession
Monday:
• At 10:00 AM ET, the January NAHB homebuilder survey. The consensus is for a reading of 62, up from 61 in December. Any number above 50 indicates that more builders view sales conditions as good than poor.
From CNBC: Pre-Market Data and Bloomberg futures: currently S&P futures are up 12 and DOW futures are up 120 (fair value).
Oil prices were down sharply over the last week with WTI futures at $29.20 per barrel (lowest since 2003) and Brent at $28.83 per barrel (lowest since 2003). A year ago, WTI was at $47, and Brent was at $48 – so prices are down about 40% year-over-year.
Here is a graph from Gasbuddy.com for nationwide gasoline prices. Nationally prices are at $1.89 per gallon (down about $0.20 per gallon from a year ago). Gasoline prices should decline over the next few weeks based on the sharp decline in oil prices.