Donald Trump responded to the alleged use of chemical weapons by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad by lobbing some missiles at the Syrian air base from which the gas attack was allegedly launched. Some have described it as a fireworks display intended more as a message than a serious military strike, but that fireworks display was quickly rivaled by the fireworks that erupted on social media among Trump supporters following the strike.
The March Consumer Price Index dropped by -0.3%. That's unusual and a decline in CPI has not happened since February 2016. The reason was volatile gas prices but America finally is catching a break on cell phone service costs too. The gasoline index by itself dropped -6.2% for the month. The bigger surprise is Inflation without food and energy prices considered dropped by -0.1%.
The March unemployment report on the surface looked bad due too less than one hundred thousand jobs gained. But that is just one number and also not part of the report which calculates the unemployment rate and other statistics. The unemployment rate actually dropped -0.2 percentage points to 4.5%. That in itself is a decade low. The better news is the monthly drop was due to less people being unemployed and almost half a million more were working.
The Third Estimate of our 4th Quarter GDP from the Bureau of Economic Analysis indicated that our real output of goods and services grew at a 2.1% rate in the 4th quarter, revised from the 1.9% growth rate indicated by the second estimate, as personal consumption expenditures and inventory investment were greater than was previously estimated, while losses from trade were worse than was previously estimated.
Two key parts of the Trump administration have now announced something of a get-tough policy on H-1B employers. Today USCIS released a memo announcing the policy, and DOJ released a similar statement. To my knowledge, this is the first time that American STEM workers have been given a voice.
The National Association of Realtors Pending Home Sales just jumped to the second highest level in a decade and the highest level in nearly a year. Pending home sales increased 5.5% in a month to an index level of 112.3. In May 2006, the index was 112.5 and from a year ago, the figure is up 2.6%. Last April saw a pending home sales index of 113.6.
The February 2017 New Residential Single Family Home Sales increased by 6.1%. Monthly sales increased by 34,000 annualized units to 592,000 for the month. Annual sales have increased 12.8%. Sales were 525,000 a year ago.
NAR's February existing home sales dropped 3.7% from January. Sales were 5.48 million, whereas January had 5.69 million annualized sales. Sales are still a soaring 5.4% higher than a year ago. Prices are through the roof and inventories are now absurdly tight.
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