The end of the pandemic is coming, possibly by Q2 2021! Please be careful, especially over the holidays. Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years will be tough this year, but keep your guard up - plan now to have safe holidays.

The US is now averaging over 1 million tests per day. Based on the experience of other countries, for adequate test-and-trace (and isolation) to reduce infections, the percent positive needs to be well under 5% (probably close to 1%), so the US still needs to increase the number of tests per day significantly (or take actions to push down the number of new infections).

There were 1,383,088 test results reported over the last 24 hours.

There were 170,333 positive tests. This is a new record.

Over 13,000 US deaths have been reported so far in November. See the graph on US Daily Deaths here.

Click on graph for larger image.

This data is from the COVID Tracking Project.

The percent positive over the last 24 hours was 12.3% (red line is 7 day average).  The percent positive is calculated by dividing positive results by the sum of negative and positive results (I don't include pending).

And check out COVID Exit Strategy to see how each state is doing.

The second graph shows the 7 day average of positive tests reported and daily hospitalizations.

The dashed line is the previous hospitalization maximum.

Note that there were very few tests available in March and April, and many cases were missed, so the hospitalizations was higher relative to the 7-day average of positive tests in July. 

Now, there are many more tests, and many cases are being detected earlier - so hospitalizations have lagged.   Hospitalizations are now at a new record.

This is a new record 7-day average cases for the USA.

from Calculated Risk https://ift.tt/3ptMZ2v

Note: I look forward to when I will not be posting this daily!

The US is now averaging close to 1 million tests per day. Based on the experience of other countries, for adequate test-and-trace (and isolation) to reduce infections, the percent positive needs to be well under 5% (probably close to 1%), so the US still needs to increase the number of tests per day significantly (or take actions to push down the number of new infections).

There were 1,068,815 test results reported over the last 24 hours.

There were 128,396 positive tests. (New record)

Almost 7,000 US deaths have been reported so far in November. See the graph on US Daily Deaths here.

Click on graph for larger image.

This data is from the COVID Tracking Project.

The percent positive over the last 24 hours was 12.0% (red line is 7 day average).

For the status of contact tracing by state, check out testandtrace.com.

And check out COVID Exit Strategy to see how each state is doing.

The second graph shows the 7 day average of positive tests reported.

The dashed line is the July high.

Note that there were very few tests available in March and April, and many cases were missed (the percent positive was very high - see first graph). By June, the percent positive had dropped below 5%.

This is a new record 7-day average cases for the USA.

from Calculated Risk https://ift.tt/3p4Vscl

Note: I look forward to when I will not be posting this daily!

The US is now averaging close to 1 million tests per day. Based on the experience of other countries, the percent positive needs to be well under 5% to really push down new infections (probably close to 1%), so the US still needs to increase the number of tests per day significantly (or take actions to push down the number of new infections).

There were 838,148 test results reported over the last 24 hours.

There were 74,443 positive tests. (New Sunday record)

Over 23,000 Americans deaths from COVID were reported in October. See the graph on US Daily Deaths here.

Click on graph for larger image.

This data is from the COVID Tracking Project.

The percent positive over the last 24 hours was 8.9% (red line is 7 day average).

For the status of contact tracing by state, check out testandtrace.com.

And check out COVID Exit Strategy to see how each state is doing.

The second graph shows the 7 day average of positive tests reported.

The dashed line is the July high.

Note that there were very few tests available in March and April, and many cases were missed (the percent positive was very high - see first graph). By June, the percent positive had dropped below 5%.

This is a new record 7-day average for the USA.

from Calculated Risk https://ift.tt/323sqjI

Weekend:
• Schedule for Week of October 25, 2020

Monday:
• At 8:30 AM ET, Chicago Fed National Activity Index for September. This is a composite index of other data.

• At 10:00 AM, New Home Sales for September from the Census Bureau. The consensus is for 1,025 thousand SAAR, up from 1,011 thousand in August.

• At 10:30 AM, Dallas Fed Survey of Manufacturing Activity for October.

From CNBC: Pre-Market Data and Bloomberg futures S&P 500 are down 18 and DOW futures are down 135 (fair value).

Oil prices were down over the last week with WTI futures at $39.23 per barrel and Brent at $41.20 barrel. A year ago, WTI was at $57, and Brent was at $62 - so WTI oil prices are down about 30% year-over-year.

Here is a graph from Gasbuddy.com for nationwide gasoline prices. Nationally prices are at $2.14 per gallon. A year ago prices were at $2.60 per gallon, so gasoline prices are down $0.46 per gallon year-over-year.

from Calculated Risk https://ift.tt/2HzMnao

Weekend:
• Schedule for Week of October 18, 2020

Monday:
• At 8:00 AM ET, Discussion, Fed Chair Jerome Powell, Cross-Border Payments and Digital Currencies, At the International Monetary Fund Annual Meeting - Panel on Cross-Border Payments

• At 10:00 AM, The October NAHB homebuilder survey. The consensus is for a reading of  83, unchanged from 83 in September. Any number above 50 indicates that more builders view sales conditions as good than poor.

From CNBC: Pre-Market Data and Bloomberg futures S&P 500 and DOW futures are up slightly (fair value).

Oil prices were up over the last week with WTI futures at $40.97 per barrel and Brent at $43.00 barrel. A year ago, WTI was at $54, and Brent was at $60 - so WTI oil prices are down about 30% year-over-year.

Here is a graph from Gasbuddy.com for nationwide gasoline prices. Nationally prices are at $2.15 per gallon. A year ago prices were at $2.66 per gallon, so gasoline prices are down $0.51 per gallon year-over-year.

from Calculated Risk https://ift.tt/2T5ymn9

Weekend:
• Schedule for Week of October 11, 2020

Monday:
• Columbus Day Holiday: Banks will be closed in observance of Columbus Day. The stock market will be open. No economic releases are scheduled.

From CNBC: Pre-Market Data and Bloomberg futures S&P 500 and DOW futures are up slightly (fair value).

Oil prices were up over the last week with WTI futures at $40.21 per barrel and Brent at $42.44 barrel. A year ago, WTI was at $55, and Brent was at $61 - so WTI oil prices are down about 30% year-over-year.

Here is a graph from Gasbuddy.com for nationwide gasoline prices. Nationally prices are at $2.17 per gallon. A year ago prices were at $2.64 per gallon, so gasoline prices are down $0.47 per gallon year-over-year.

from Calculated Risk https://ift.tt/2IkSvDL

The BEA released their estimate of light vehicle sales for September this morning. The BEA estimates sales of 16.34 million SAAR in September 2020 (Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate), up 7.6% from the August sales rate, and down 4.3% from September 2019.

Click on graph for larger image.

This graph shows light vehicle sales since 2006 from the BEA (blue) and the BEA's estimate for September (red).

The impact of COVID-19 was significant, and April was the worst month.

Since April, sales have increased, but are still down 4.3% from last year.

The second graph shows light vehicle sales since the BEA started keeping data in 1967.

Note: dashed line is current estimated sales rate of 16.34 million SAAR.

Sales-to-date are down 18.8% in 2020 compared to the same period in 2019.

In 2019, there were 12.70 million light vehicle sales through September.  In 2020, there have been 10.31 million sales.

from Calculated Risk https://ift.tt/2GbUSYV

Freddie Mac reported that the Single-Family serious delinquency rate in August was 3.17%, up from 3.12% in July. Freddie's rate is up from 0.61% in August 2019.

This is the highest serious delinquency rate since January 2013.

Freddie's serious delinquency rate peaked in February 2010 at 4.20%.

These are mortgage loans that are "three monthly payments or more past due or in foreclosure".

Click on graph for larger image

Mortgages in forbearance are being counted as delinquent in this monthly report, but they will not be reported to the credit bureaus.

This is very different from the increase in delinquencies following the housing bubble.   Lending standards have been fairly solid over the last decade, and most of these homeowners have equity in their homes - and they will be able to restructure their loans once (if) they are employed.

Note: Fannie Mae will report for August soon.

from Calculated Risk https://ift.tt/3n3h5ZM

Thursday:
• At 8:30 AM ET, The initial weekly unemployment claims report will be released. The early consensus is for a 950 thousand initial claims, down from 1.006 million the previous week.

• At 8:30 AM, Trade Balance report for July from the Census Bureau. The consensus is for the U.S. trade deficit to be at $52.3 billion in July, from $50.7 billion in June.

• At 10:00 AM, ISM Services Index for August.

from Calculated Risk https://ift.tt/3bxW3gB

Wednesday:
• At 7:00 AM ET, The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) will release the results for the mortgage purchase applications index.

• At 8:15 AM, The ADP Employment Report for August. This report is for private payrolls only (no government). The consensus is for 900,000 payroll jobs added in August, up from 167,000 added in July.

from Calculated Risk https://ift.tt/2YVzg9c

From Matthew Graham at Mortgage News Daily: Lowest Mortgage Rates in 3 Weeks

Mortgage rates improved nicely today with the average lender more convincingly back under the 3.0% threshold for conventional 30yr fixed scenarios. In general, that refers to 740+ credit and 20% equity/down-payment on an owner-occupied single family home with a loan amount at or under the conforming loan limit. Stray very far from that path and rates can increase rather quickly. [Top Tier Scenarios 30YR FIXED: 2.88%]
emphasis added

Tuesday:
• At 10:00 AM, ISM Manufacturing Index for August. The consensus is for the ISM to be at 54.5, up from 54.2 in July.

• Also at 10:00 AM, Construction Spending for July. The consensus is for a 1.0% increase in construction spending.

• Also at 10:00 AM, The BLS is scheduled to release Labor Force projections through 2029.

• All day, Light vehicle sales for August. The consensus is for light vehicle sales to be 15.2 million SAAR in August, up from 14.5 million in July (Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate).

from Calculated Risk https://ift.tt/2QCTL66

The US is now mostly reporting over 700,000 tests per day (fewer recently). Based on the experience of other countries, the percent positive needs to be well under 5% to really push down new infections, so the US still needs to increase the number of tests per day significantly (or take actions to push down the number of new infections).

There were 772 thousand test results reported over the last 24 hours.

There were 47 thousand positive tests.

There have been over 28,000 COVID reported deaths in the first 28 days of August. See the graph on US Daily Deaths here.

Click on graph for larger image.

This data is from the COVID Tracking Project.

The percent positive over the last 24 hours was 6.1% (red line).

For the status of contact tracing by state, check out testandtrace.com.

And check out COVID Exit Strategy to see how each state is doing.

from Calculated Risk https://ift.tt/31FlJ7E

Take the over on existing home sales tomorrow. This could be the highest sales rate since 2006!

Friday:
• At 10:00 AM ET, Existing Home Sales for July from the National Association of Realtors (NAR). The consensus is for 5.39 million SAAR, up from 4.72 million last month.

Housing economist Tom Lawler expects the NAR to report 5.85 million SAAR.

• Also at 10:00 AM State Employment and Unemployment (Monthly) for July 2019

from Calculated Risk https://ift.tt/3aIjpzv

From Matthew Graham at Mortgage News Daily: Still Reeling From Last Week, Mortgage Rates Tiptoe Lower

Mortgage rates managed to improve modestly for the average lender today, but they remain significantly higher than they were before last week's regulatory drama. By the time we consider the size, scope, and the precipitous imposition of the new refi fee, we've never seen anything remotely similar. Lenders were definitely taken by surprise and they'll definitely be paying dearly for all refis that were already locked.

When lenders get big, negative surprises concerning profitability or new cost requirements, they tend to raise rates very quickly and by a larger-than-necessary amount. [Top Tier Scenarios 30YR FIXED: 3.12%]
emphasis added

Tuesday:
• At 8:30 AM ET, Housing Starts for July. The consensus is for 1.237 million SAAR, up from 1.186 million SAAR in June.

from Calculated Risk https://ift.tt/2CBbMhL

Friday:
• At 8:30 AM, Retail sales for July is scheduled to be released.  The consensus is for 1.8% increase in retail sales.

• At 9:15 AM, The Fed will release Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization for July. The consensus is for a 3.0% increase in Industrial Production, and for Capacity Utilization to increase to 70.2%.

• At 10:00 AM, University of Michigan's Consumer sentiment index (Preliminary for August).

from Calculated Risk https://ift.tt/3fWEjM6

Wednesday:
• At 7:00 AM ET, The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) will release the results for the mortgage purchase applications index.

• At 8:30 AM, The Consumer Price Index for July from the BLS. The consensus is for a 0.3% increase in CPI, and a 0.2% increase in core CPI.

from Calculated Risk https://ift.tt/3ahG3yo

Tuesday:
• At 6:00 AM ET, NFIB Small Business Optimism Index for July.

• At 8:30 AM, The Producer Price Index for July from the BLS. The consensus is for a 0.3% increase in PPI, and a 0.1% increase in core PPI.

• At 12:00 PM, MBA Q2 National Delinquency Survey

from Calculated Risk https://ift.tt/2PFcKMC

Note: I've added a New York specific indicator - subway usage - at the bottom.

These indicators are mostly for travel and entertainment - some of the sectors that will recover very slowly.

----- Airlines: Transportation Security Administration -----
The TSA is providing daily travel numbers.

Click on graph for larger image.

This data shows the daily total traveler throughput from the TSA for 2019 (Blue) and 2020 (Red).

On Aug 2nd, the seven day average was 686,360 compared to the seven average of 2,589,300 a year ago.

The seven day average is down 73% from last year.  There had been a slow steady increase from the bottom, but air travel has mostly moved sideways over the last several weeks.

----- Restaurants: OpenTable -----
The second graph shows the 7 day average of the year-over-year change in diners as tabulated by OpenTable for the US and several selected cities.

Thanks to OpenTable for providing this restaurant data:

This data is updated through Aug 8, 2020.

This data is "a sample of restaurants on the OpenTable network across all channels: online reservations, phone reservations, and walk-ins. For year-over-year comparisons by day, we compare to the same day of the week from the same week in the previous year."

Note that this data is for "only the restaurants that have chosen to reopen in a given market".

The 7 day average for New York is still off 75%.

Texas is down 51% YoY.  Note that dining declined in many areas as the number of COVID cases surged. It appears dining is increasing again (probably mostly outdoor dining).

----- Movie Tickets: Box Office Mojo -----
This data shows domestic box office for each week (red) and the maximum and minimum for the previous four years.  Data is from BoxOfficeMojo through August 6th.

Note that the data is usually noisy week-to-week and depends on when blockbusters are released.

Movie ticket sales have picked up a slightly from the bottom, but are still under $1 million per week (compared to usually around $300 million per week), and ticket sales have essentially been at zero for twenty weeks.

Most movie theaters are closed all across the country, and will probably reopen slowly (probably with limited seating at first).

----- Hotel Occupancy: STR -----
This graph shows the seasonal pattern for the hotel occupancy rate using the four week average.

The red line is for 2020, dash light blue is 2019, blue is the median, and black is for 2009 (the worst year probably since the Great Depression for hotels).

This data is through August 1st.

COVID-19 crushed hotel occupancy, however the occupancy rate has increased in 15 of the last 16 weeks, and is currently down 35% year-over-year.

Notes: Y-axis doesn't start at zero to better show the seasonal change.

Usually hotel occupancy starts to pick up seasonally in early June and decline towards the end of summer. So some of the recent pickup might be seasonal (summer travel).   Note that summer occupancy usually peaks at the end of July or in early August.

----- Gasoline Consumption: Energy Information Administration -----
This graph, based on weekly data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), shows gasoline consumption compared to the same week last year of .

At one point, gasoline consumption was off almost 50% YoY.

As of July 31st, gasoline consumption was only off about 11% YoY (about 89% of normal).

Note: I know several people that have driven to vacation spots - or to visit family - and they usually would have flown.   So this might be boosting gasoline consumption over the summer.

----- Transit: Apple Mobility -----
This graph is from Apple mobility. From Apple: "This data is generated by counting the number of requests made to Apple Maps for directions in select countries/regions, sub-regions, and cities." This is just a general guide - people that regularly commute probably don't ask for directions.

There is also some great data on mobility from the Dallas Fed Mobility and Engagement Index. However the index is set "relative to its weekday-specific average over January–February", and is not seasonally adjusted, so we can't tell if an increase in mobility is due to recovery or just the normal increase in the Spring and Summer.

This data is through August 8th for the United States and several selected cities.

The graph is the running 7 day average to remove the impact of weekends.

IMPORTANT: All data is relative to January 13, 2020. This data is NOT Seasonally Adjusted. People walk and drive more when the weather is nice, so I'm just using the transit data.

According to the Apple data directions requests, public transit in the 7 day average for the US is still only about 53% of the January level. It is at 48% in New York, and 55% in Houston.

----- New York City Subway Usage -----
Here is some interesting data on New York subway usage (HT BR).

This graph is from Todd W Schneider.

This data is through Friday, August 7th.

Schneider has graphs for each borough, and links to all the data sources.

He notes: "Data updates weekly from the MTA’s public turnstile data, usually on Saturday mornings"

from Calculated Risk https://ift.tt/3iq3ZTb

Weekend:
• Schedule for Week of August 9, 2020

• State and Local Education Employment in August

Monday:
• At 10:00 AM ET, Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for June from the BLS.

From CNBC: Pre-Market Data and Bloomberg futures S&P 500 and DOW futures are down slightly (fair value).

Oil prices were up over the last week with WTI futures at $41.59 per barrel and Brent at $44.69 barrel.  A year ago, WTI was at $55, and Brent was at $61 - so WTI oil prices are down about 25% year-over-year.

Here is a graph from Gasbuddy.com for nationwide gasoline prices. Nationally prices are at $2.16 per gallon. A year ago prices were at $2.66 per gallon, so gasoline prices are down $0.50 per gallon year-over-year.

from Calculated Risk https://ift.tt/2EYKL8D

Wednesday:
• At 7:00 AM ET, The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) will release the results for the mortgage purchase applications index.

• At 8:15 AM, The ADP Employment Report for July. This report is for private payrolls only (no government). The consensus is for 1.25 million payroll jobs added in July, down from 2.369 million added in June.

• At 8:30 AM, Trade Balance report for June from the Census Bureau. The consensus is the trade deficit to be $50.3 billion.  The U.S. trade deficit was at $54.6 Billion the previous month.

• At 10:00 AM, the ISM non-Manufacturing Index for July.   The consensus is for a reading of 54.8, down from 57.1.

from Calculated Risk https://ift.tt/2Xv4pQ3