{"id":349935,"date":"2025-12-15T10:57:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T10:57:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/349935\/"},"modified":"2025-12-15T10:57:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T10:57:12","slug":"economic-week-ahead-december-15-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/349935\/","title":{"rendered":"ECONOMIC WEEK AHEAD: December 15\u201319"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

This week is loaded with long-delayed government data releases, including on employment and inflation,\u00a0which will\u00a0provide a reality check on the economy’s performance in the final weeks of 2025. This week’s earnings reports from FedEx, General Mills, Carnival, and Jabil could also be illuminating.<\/p>\n

Last week’s Federal Open Market Committee event produced a third rate cut this year, three dissenting votes, and\u00a0the\u00a0prospect of a weaker labor market than anyone knew:\u00a0Fed Chair Jerome Powell\u00a0suggested there may have been\u00a0a “systemic overcount” of job increases since April\u2014perhaps as much as 60,000 per month.<\/p>\n

The markets will pay close attention\u00a0this week\u00a0to some talking Fed heads. They include Governor Stephen Miran (Mon),\u00a0tackling the inflation outlook,\u00a0and Governor Christopher Waller (Wed),\u00a0offering his latest economic outlook. It’s also a busy week for central banks worldwide. Get ready for rate decisions from the European Central Bank (Thu), Bank of England (Thu), and Bank of Japan (Fri).<\/p>\n

Here are the data reports most likely to help Fed officials and investors alike discern whether slowing growth or rising inflation is the bigger concern:<\/p>\n

(1) Employment. The unemployment rate was 4.4% in September. October’s jobless rate will remain a permanent gap in the data. October’s payroll employment will be reported along with November’s reading (Tue). Markets looking for direction into year-end will scrutinize the payroll data for any hints\u00a0that\u00a0Powell might be onto something. We\u2019re expecting a 40,000-job increase for both months. November’s jobless rate should hold steady at 4.4% given the low pace of initial unemployment claims (chart). The latest weekly jobless claims data (Thu) should confirm as much.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

(2)\u00a0CPI. October’s official CPI will remain forever MIA. November’s headline CPI (Thu) should be up 0.32% following a 0.18% increase in October, according to the Cleveland Fed’s\u00a0Inflation Nowcasting<\/a>. On a y\/y basis, both remain stuck around 3.0%. Inflation would have been closer to 2.0% by now but for tariffs that boosted durable goods inflation (chart).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

(3)\u00a0Retail sales. September\u2019s modest 0.2% m\/m gain in retail sales was surprisingly weak given the strength of the Redbook Retail Sales Index (chart). The October data (Wed) should provide a timely update showing that consumers are still doing what they do best. On the other hand, existing home sales for November (Fri) and the December consumer sentiment index (Fri) are likely still depressed.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

(4)\u00a0Fed business surveys. The New York Fed business survey (Mon) starts the week, followed by\u00a0reports from\u00a0the Philly Fed (Thu) and the Kansas City Fed (Thu). These\u00a0regional surveys\u00a0have helped\u00a0to\u00a0predict the national ISM M-PMI (chart). However,\u00a0they have been overly pessimistic predictors of\u00a0real GDP\u00a0growth\u00a0for quite a while.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udca1<\/p>\n

Join the discussion with Ed below! To leave comments or questions, log in to the Yardeni QuickTakes website and post them at the end of the QuickTakes article. Paid members’ contributions may be featured in our segment, “Ed Answers Your Questions”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This week is loaded with long-delayed government data releases, including on employment and inflation,\u00a0which will\u00a0provide a reality check…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":349936,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[28,101],"class_list":{"0":"post-349935","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=349935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349935\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/349936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}