This Week: Housing starts, Fed policy update, FedEx earns
Sep 18, 2022, 12:10 PM | Updated: Sep 19, 2022, 12:11 am
A look at some of the key business events and economic indicators upcoming this week:
TRACKING RESIDENTIAL CONSTRUCTION
New government data on residential construction should provide insight into the state of the new-home market.
The Commerce Department is expected to report Tuesday that builders broke ground on new apartments and single-family homes last month at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of about 1.45 million properties. That would be a slight increase from July. Builders are facing rising costs, production bottlenecks and slowing demand amid sharply higher mortgage rates than a year ago.
Housing starts, monthly, seasonally adjusted annual rate:
March 1,716,000
April 1,805,000
May 1,562,000
June 1,599,000
July 1,446,000
Aug. (est.) 1,450,000
Source: FactSet
THE FED SPEAKS
The Federal Reserve is set to release its latest interest rate policy update following a two-day meeting of its policymakers.
At its last meeting in July, the central bank hiked its key short-term interest rate by a hefty three-quarters of a point for a second straight time, it’s most aggressive drive in more than three decades to tame high inflation. Economists and Wall Street traders expect the central bank to once again raise rates by three-quarters of a point Wednesday.
DELIVER THIS
FedEx reports its fiscal first-quarter results Thursday.
The package delivery service recently warned investors that profits for the June-August quarter will likely fall short of forecasts because of a drop-off in business. It’s also shuttering storefronts and corporate offices and expects business conditions to further weaken, hurting results for its current quarter.
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