3/19/10

As opposed to today, which has no scheduled economic news (aside from many folks watching the results of the NCAA basketball tournament), yesterday we had quite a bit. The CPI came out at unchanged in February, slightly less inflationary than expected. The core rate, ex-food and energy, was +.1%, as expected. Year-over-year numbers for CPI showed an increase that was well within expectations and certainly indicative of a suitable amount of inflation at the consumer level. Initial claims for jobless insurance came out about as expected at 457,000, with continuing claims coming in at 4.579 million. Later in the morning we also saw the Conference Board’s Leading Economic Indicators increase for the 11th straight month – impressive, and consistent with the belief that the economy has bottomed out and is slowly strengthening. The “Philly Fed” came out slightly stronger than expected, which also helped the equity markets but to the detriment of bonds. In fact, stocks have improved for 8 straight days.
With no news today, we find mortgage rates slightly worse this morning.