There were quite a few reports for investors to analyze last week. President Obama’s deficit commission proposed nearly $4 trillion in cuts to help reduce the federal deficit. Some of the proposals include cutting defense and raising the federal gas tax. New claims for jobless benefits fell by 24,000—the third decline in four weeks—and small businesses were a little more optimistic in October.
The NFIB index rose by nearly 3 points to a 91.7 reading, but small businesses are not ready to hire more workers. In the week ahead, investors await data on housing, production and inflation.
We’ll gain on the housing market with two reports. We’ll get the October housing starts report. In September housing starts rose unexpectedly by 0.3 of 1 percent, while building permits — a gauge of future construction- declined 5.6 percent. We’ll also hear from the home builders with the November builder sentiment report. Builder optimism rose for the first time in 5 months in October.
We’ll get a read on the economy with the industrial production report for October. The report looks at manufacturing, mining and utilities. In September industrial production dipped 0.2 of 1 percent due to a slow down in manufacturing demand.
Is inflation a concern? We’ll find out with the October consumer price index report which tracks price changes for food clothing and energy. In September prices rose slightly driven by higher food and energy prices.