Amid the billion-dollar bankruptcies and bailouts it can be easy to forget about the rest of the economy. Christian Hill says data from this week should reveal ongoing weakness in the housing market and wider economy. Hardly what the market wants to hear right now…

This from Money Morning:

After last week’s turbulent market, it might not be such a bad thing that we have to wait until Wednesday for our first economic report of the week. It may give the market time to digest everything going on, without a missed report or two to roil the markets.

The Existing Home Sales report on Wednesday morning is likely to show continued weakness. This month the drop is shaping up to be around 70k units. At some point I expect this number to move up simply based on the number of foreclosures that are available for fifty cents on the dollar. This is happening in some markets, where volume is increasing, but the average sale price is dropping as foreclosures are snapped up.

Countering the drop in Existing Home Sales is the expected rise in sales of New Homes in August. While the increase over July is only 3k units, at least it is moving in the right direction. I wonder if these are new builds that sat empty for months until builders slashed prices to clear inventory.

Expectations are for the Durable Orders report for August to post a 1.3 percent drop versus July. This could be due to the last round of stimulus checks being spent on durable goods in July, and the equivalent drop in August when the checks were no longer in circulation.

The final revision to the Q2 GDP is due out on Friday. It is expected to be revised up 0.10 percent, to 3.4 percent. I guess in light of everything else going on, a revision up is a small victory.

Closing out the week is the revised Michigan Sentiment report for September. With the recent drop in oil prices being offset by banking collapses, I am not sure which way this will go. If I had to guess, I would expect a slight revision down.

Source: Second Half Of The Week Packed With Reports