Weekend:
• Schedule for Week of March 21, 2021
• Housing: Active Inventory down around 50% YoY
• Lawler: Update on the Dismal Demographics of 2020; “Smallest Population increase since 1918”
Monday:
• At 8:30 AM ET, Chicago Fed National Activity Index for February. This is a composite index of other data.
• At 9:00 AM, Discussion, Fed Chair Powell, How Can Central Banks Innovate in the Digital Age?, At the Bank for International Settlements Innovation Summit
• At 10:00 AM, Existing Home Sales for February from the National Association of Realtors (NAR). The consensus is for 6.50 million SAAR, down from 6.69 million. Housing economist Tom Lawler expects the NAR to report sales of 6.29 million SAAR for February.
From CNBC: Pre-Market Data and Bloomberg futures S&P 500 futures are down 5 and DOW futures are down 45 (fair value).
Oil prices were down over the last week with WTI futures at $60.87 per barrel and Brent at $63.98 per barrel. A year ago, WTI was at $19, and Brent was at $26 – so WTI oil prices are UP sharply year-over-year (oil prices collapsed at the beginning of the pandemic).
Here is a graph from Gasbuddy.com for nationwide gasoline prices. Nationally prices are at $2.87 per gallon. A year ago prices were at $2.08 per gallon, so gasoline prices are up $0.79 per gallon year-over-year.