The Good and Not-So-Good News In Financial World This Past Week

A quick summary of financial activities for the week ending June 23rd, 2017 Positives: 1. S&P 500 made another all-time closing high. 2. Existing home sales rose 1.1% to a higher-than-expected 5.620 million annualized rate. 3. Initial jobless claims rose slightly to 241k, but the 4-week average remains low, at 244.75k. 4. New home sales in May totaled 610k, 20k more than expected and April was revised up by 24k to 593k 5. MBA mortgage application composite index inched higher, rising 0.6% w/o/w. 6. FHFA’s house price index rose 0.7 percent in April with March revised 1 tenth higher. The year-on-year rate rose 0.4%, its the best showing in 3 years Negatives: 1. Index of leading economic indicators rose 0.3%, in line with expectations. April was revised 0.1% lower. 2. New home sales fell from a 621,000 annualized rate in March down to a 569,000 rate in April. 3. Composite PMI slowed with services at 53.0 and manufacturing at 52.1, both shy of expectations. 4. Mortgage applications to buy a home fell 1% w/o/w (but are still up 9.2% y/o/y). 5. Eurozone manufacturing and services composite index fell to 55.7 from 56.8 in May and was below the estimate of 56.6