The June 5 week is a quiet one with few data releases on the calendar and nothing likely to be of market-moving impact. Fed policymakers will be out of the public eye during the communications blackout period around the June 13-14 FOMC meeting. The blackout goes into effect at midnight on Saturday, June 3 and will last through midnight on Thursday, June 15.
In the absence of significant data, Fed policymakers will heave a sigh of relief that a debt limit breach was averted and no longer weighs on the outlook for the economy or monetary policy. The May employment numbers, headlined by a strong 339,000 rise in nonfarm payrolls but balanced by a sharp uptick in unemployment to 3.7 percent, are consistent with a labor market that is reestablishing more balanced conditions while remaining able to absorb new workers, or offer possibilities to workers looking for new opportunities. Rising gasoline prices are an unwelcome reminder that inflation has not been tamed and will keep consumer confidence readings on the pessimistic side. Consumers and businesses will not be happy about tightening financial conditions and higher borrowing costs, but this doesn’t seem to be severely impacting spending.
Whether the FOMC ends up raising rates again may depend on the tone of the CPI report for May when it is released at 8:30 ET on Tuesday, June 13, the first day of the FOMC meeting. It is a close call as to whether FOMC voters are going to want one more move for insurance and to emphasize they are committed to bringing inflation down, or if they feel that conditions will allow them to wait for more data.
On the face of it, the GDP Nowcasts from the St. Louis and Atlanta Fed’s are telling slightly different stories. However, it is early yet and the second quarter data are far from complete.
