LAST WEEK

News & Commentary Weekly Highlights:

• Wall Street Journal: Education Does Reduce Inequality (Thursday)
• Wall Street Journal: Fed Divided on June Rate Increase, but Soft Data May Prove Deciding Factor (Thursday)
• Real Clear Markets: The Federal Debt Is Worse Than You Think (Wednesday)
• Real Clear Markets: How to Employ the Very Hard to Employ (Wednesday)
• Investor’s Business Daily: Obamanomics Has Failed Utterly in Reviving the Jobs Machine (Monday)

 

Top Economic Indicator Highlights:

Job Openings & Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS, February)

• Job openings: 5.133 million, 12-mo avg.: 4.749 million, Recovery avg.: 3.560 million
• Hires: 4.916 million, 12-mo avg.: 4.941 million, Recovery avg.: 4.358 million
• Separations (quits, layoffs, discharges): 4.329 million, 12-mo avg.: 4.377 million, Recovery avg.: 3.920 million
• Noteworthy: Of separations, there were 2.7 million quits and 1.6 million layoffs. This was the highest level of job openings since January 2001.

 

THIS WEEK

Upcoming Economic Reports & Releases:

Major Indicators

• Treasury Budget (2pm, Monday)
• Producer Price Index for Final Demand (PPI-FD, 8:30am, Tuesday)
• Retail Sales (8:30am, Tuesday)
• Business Inventories (10am, Tuesday)
• Industrial Production (9:15am, Wednesday)
• Housing Starts (8:30am, Thursday)
• Consumer Price Index (8:30am, Friday)