Producer Price Index, Housing Starts, Leading Economic Indicators, and Philly Fed Survey

In news released this morning, weekly jobless claims stood at 570k, weaker than the expected 550k economists estimated. This report indicated continued weakness in the labor market. Bottom line, the US economy will not fully recover until people have jobs.

In other news, the Philly Fed survey stood at 4.2, better than expectations of 1.0. Lastly, Leading Economic Indicators (LEI) rose 0.6%, near expectations.

The data released this morning was mixed; weekly jobless claims were bond friendly, and however the improvement in the Philly Fed and LEI were not.

This morning the Treasury announced the size of next week’s auctions. They are going to auction 42B of 2-yr, $39B of 5-yr and $28B in 7-yr. This will raise a record amount of new cash as only 19B is being refinanced. Yikes! Traders were pleased the amount of debt was at the low end of the expected range.