Economic news junkies, rejoice!
The government reports will start to come out again this week now that the government shutdown is ended. While they won’t be perfect, they will be welcome after the 41-day shutdown.
A word of warning: Some of the reports due this week won’t be as complete as the reports issued before the shutdown began. So we might wait at least another month before the picture becomes clearer. (Or as clear as federal reports can be.)
But the Federal Reserve should be happy. No organization in the U.S. lives for economic data much as the Fed. Its rate-making body, the Federal Open Market Committee, meets Dec. 9-10, its final meeting of the year. And officials have said they feel as if they’ve been flying blind.
Already there are worries that the Fed won’t cut interest rates at the December meeting, although the pressure to cut will be intense because President Trump wants rates cut — and cut a lot.
Right now, the Fed’s key rate is 3.75% to 4%.
In fact, going into the Monday, financial markets are suggesting there’s only a 44.6% chance of a rate cut because inflation is still too high, and there’s a 55.4% change there will be no cut.
Here are the week’s reports to look for, starting with the government reports.
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Housing takes a bow
Housing starts and building permits for September will come on Wednesday from the Census Bureau, the first of the big government reports. The most recent report, for August, showed starts running at a 1.3 million-unit rate, down 3.7% for July and 4.1% below the rate for August 2024.
Homebuyers have struggled with higher mortgage rates (around 6.4% now) and high prices.
A second key housing report will come Thursday: the existing-home-sales report for October from the National Association of Realtors. That’s expected to show sales running at a 4.08 million annual rate, up from the September sales rate of 4 million home and apartments sold.
There will also come reports on builder confidence on Tuesday from the National Association of Home Builders. The luxury segment seems fairly strong.
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Jobs report
This is historically the most important report of the month. It will be issued on Thursday instead of the the usual first Friday of the month. The Trump administration is expecting only half a report that will cover the period ending on Sept. 15. That will cover only how payroll employment has changed.
The consensus estimate is that payrolls have increased just 22,000, unchanged from August. For 2025 through May, the economy had added at least 100,000 jobs a month.
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Since then, job growth has declined substantially, and layoffs have gone up. Outplacement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas reported 153,000+ in new new layoffs in October.
The unemployment rate, derived from a separate survey, won’t reappear until the report for November, due Dec. 5.
PMI reports may guide where the economy is headed
Two reports due Friday from S&P Global will offer a decent view of what’s to come.
The S&P Global Purchasing Managers Index for manufacturing for October should come in at 52 (50 shows growth). The Purchasing Managers Index for Services is expected to hit 54 in October, a sign of relative robustness.
Lastly, the final Consumer Sentiment Index for November is due Friday from the University of Michigan. Widely watched, it offers a snapshot of how consumers view the economy. It’s been negative in recent months, although the index typically doesn’t show a 1-for-1 relationship to actual data.