The key reports scheduled for this week are the January employment report and the December trade deficit​. ----- Monday, February 3rd ----- 10:00 AM: ISM Manufacturing Index for January. The consensus is for the ISM to be at 49.5, up from 49.3 in December. 10:00 AM: Construction Spending for December. The consensus is for a 0.1% increase in construction spending. All day: Light vehicle sales for January. Sales were at 16.8 million in December (Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate). Wards expects vehicle sales to decrease to 15.6 million SAAR in January. Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices (SLOOS). ----- Tuesday, February 4th ----- 10:00 AM ET: Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for December from the BLS. ----- Wednesday, February 5th ----- 7:00 AM ET: The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) will release the mortgage purchase applications index. ADP Employment Report for January. This report is for private payrolls only (no government). The consensus is for 150,000 payroll jobs added in January, up from 122,000 added in December. 8:30 AM: Trade Balance report for December from the Census Bureau. ISM Services Index for January. Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices (SLOOS). ----- Thursday, February 6th ----- 8:30 AM: The initial weekly unemployment claims report will be released. The consensus is for a increase to 214 thousand from 207 thousand last week. ----- Friday, February 7th ----- 8:30 AM: Employment Report for December.   The consensus is for 170,000 jobs added, and for the unemployment rate to be unchanged at 4.1%. University of Michigan's Consumer sentiment index (Preliminary for January).

Radio, Startups, History, Bally's, Dead Internet, Caesars

The start of the Asian Conglomerates Series: we open with a look at the life of Stanley Ho, gambling king of Macau.

Note: Mortgage rates are from MortgageNewsDaily.com and are for top tier scenarios. For deaths, I'm currently using 4 weeks ago for "now", since the most recent three weeks will be revised significantly. Note: "Effective May 1, 2024, hospitals are no longer required to report COVID-19 hospital admissions, hospital capacity, or hospital occupancy data."  So I'm no longer tracking hospitalizations. COVID Metrics  NowWeek AgoGoal Deaths per Week🚩773628≤3501 1my goals to stop weekly posts. 🚩 Increasing number weekly for Deaths. ✅ Goal met. Click on graph for larger image. This graph shows the weekly (columns) number of deaths reported since Jan 2023. Although weekly deaths met the original goal to stop posting, I'm continuing to post now that deaths are above the goal again - and at a minimum, I'll continue to post through the Winter.   Weekly deaths have been increasing, and weekly deaths are well above the low of 313 in early June 2024. And here is a graph I'm following concerning COVID in wastewater as of January 30th: This appears to be a leading indicator for COVID hospitalizations and deaths. Nationally COVID in wastewater is "High" according to the CDC.

OpenAI has just unveiled o3-mini, the latest addition to its "reasoning" model family.