Monday November 17, 2008
Navivest

It was not too long ago that the investment community was actively debating whether the Federal Reserve would raise rates or not at their next scheduled meetings.

That debate is now off the table as the economy has cooled substantially and if anything, the debate is now whether the feds will continue to cut rates to spur the economy.

Tomorrow, we get the Producer Price Index numbers for October. The PPI measures the price of goods at the wholesale level.

With the state of the economy and the drop in oil prices of late, we expect to see a tame PPI.

Investors watch the PPI numbers as it helps portend the direction of interest rates.

One thing we would like to know is what Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher is thinking now. At the August 5th meeting when the FOMC voted to keep interest rates unchanged, he dissented and voted to raise rates.

We wondered then whether he could not see what was beginning to happen to the economy and that things would get worse. To us, this lack of foresight disqualifies him for his job.

Tags: PPI  Economy  Interest Rates

We have three major pieces of economic news on tap for today. We will be getting:

8:30 AM - PPI (Producer Price Index ) for July 2008 - PPI measures the price of products using the wholesale price.

8:30 AM - Core PPI for July 2008 - Same as PPI, but energy and food prices which are considered volatile, are left out.

8:30 AM - Housing Starts for July 2008 - This measures the number of residential building projects that were started in the reporting period.

8:30 AM - Building Permits for July 2008 - This also measures the number of residential building projects that were started in the reporting period. However, not all areas of the country require building permits, so housings starts numbers are released as well, to give a more accurate guage.

The economic calendar for today has the potential to move markets, with building permits and housing starts more likely than not, to show that the housing market keeps weakening.

economic calendar  housing starts  building permits