By Wednesday:
• At 7:00 AM ET, The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) will release the results for the mortgage purchase applications index.
• At 8:30 AM, Retail sales for February is scheduled to be released. The consensus is for a 0.4% increase in retail sales.
• At 10:00 AM, The March NAHB homebuilder survey. The consensus is for a reading of 81, down from 82. Any number above 50 indicates that more builders view sales conditions as good than poor.
• At 2:00 PM, FOMC Meeting Announcement. The FOMC is expected to raise the Fed Funds rate by 25bps at this meeting.
• At 2:00 PM, FOMC Forecasts This will include the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) participants’ projections of the appropriate target federal funds rate along with the quarterly economic projections.
• At 2:30 PM, Fed Chair Jerome Powell holds a press briefing following the FOMC announcement.
On COVID (focus on hospitalizations and deaths):
COVID Metrics
Now
Week
Ago
Goal
Percent fully Vaccinated
65.3%
—
≥70.0%1
Fully Vaccinated (millions)
216.8
—
≥2321
New Cases per Day3
32,458
39,184
≤5,0002
Hospitalized3
21,260
30,474
≤3,0002
Deaths per Day3
1,186
1,211
≤502
1 Minimum to achieve “herd immunity” (estimated between 70% and 85%).
2my goals to stop daily posts,
37-day average for Cases, Currently Hospitalized, and Deaths
🚩 Increasing 7-day average week-over-week for Cases, Hospitalized, and Deaths
✅ Goal met.
Click on graph for larger image.
This graph shows the daily (columns) and 7-day average (line) of deaths reported.
New cases, hospitalizations and deaths are still declining.
