Schedule for Week of July 7th

The focus this week will be on the FOMC minutes for the June meeting (for further hints on QE3 tapering plans), and on the speech that follows a couple of hours later by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke.

For prices, PPI for June will be released on Friday.

Also Reis will release their Q2 2013 Office and Apartment vacancy rate survey this week.

----- Monday, July 8th -----
Early: Reis Q2 2013 Office Survey of rents and vacancy rates.

3:00 PM ET: Consumer Credit for May from the Federal Reserve. The consensus is for credit to increase $13.0 billion in May.

----- Tuesday, July 9th -----
Early: Reis Q2 2013 Apartment Survey of rents and vacancy rates.

7:30 AM ET: NFIB Small Business Optimism Index for June. The consensus is for an increase to 94.7 from 94.4 in May.

10:00 AM: Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for May from the BLS.

This graph shows job openings (yellow line), hires (purple), Layoff, Discharges and other (red column), and Quits (light blue column) from the JOLTS.

Jobs openings decreased in April to 3.757 million, down from 3.875 million in March. The number of job openings (yellow) has generally been trending up, and openings are up 7% year-over-year compared to April 2012. 

Quits were up in April, and quits are up about 8% year-over-year. These are voluntary separations. (see light blue columns at bottom of graph for trend for "quits").

----- Wednesday, July 10th -----
7:00 AM: The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) will release the results for the mortgage purchase applications index.

10:00 AM: Monthly Wholesale Trade: Sales and Inventories for May. The consensus is for a 0.3% increase in inventories.

2:00 PM: FOMC Minutes for Meeting of June 18-19, 2013.

4:10 PM: Speech by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, A Century of U.S. Central Banking: Goals, Frameworks, Accountability, At the National Bureau of Economic Research Conference: The First 100 Years of the Federal Reserve: The Policy Record, Lessons Learned, and Prospects for the Future, Cambridge, Mass.

----- Thursday, July 11th -----
8:30 AM: The initial weekly unemployment claims report will be released. The consensus is for a decrease to 337 thousand from 343 thousand last week.

----- Friday, July 12th -----
8:30 AM: Producer Price Index for June. The consensus is for a 0.5% increase in producer prices (0.2% increase in core).

9:55 AM: Reuter's/University of Michigan's Consumer sentiment index (preliminary for July). The consensus is for a reading of 84.1 unchanged from June.