US Economic Radar: Yellen, M2, SSS, FOMC

U.S. Federal government is still shutdown, so backlogged economic releases are starting to pile up. Even without those reports though it was still a very eventful economic week.

A recap of this week’s U.S. economic events:

President Obama nominated Janet Yellen to be the next Chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve.
The minutes from the FOMC’s September 17-18 meeting were released. Attitudes were little changed.
Total consumer credit outstanding increased at an annual rate of 5.4% in August.
Initial jobless claims for the week spiked to 374k due to the government shutdown. The insured unemployment rate was 2.2%.
New indicator: Now tracking the NFCI, which suggested that financial conditions are tighter than they were a week ago.
The preliminary reading of consumer sentiment in October declined to 75.2.
National gas prices declined to $3.37 per gallon in September.
Stores sales weakened during the government shutdown.
M2 increased 0.47% from a week ago.

Further U.S. economy reading this week:

Economic releases that have been skipped over the last two weeks and will presumably be published sometime next week when the government gets it act together:

Employment Situation – Last +169k nonfarm payrolls, U-3 at 7.3%.
Construction Spending – Last up 6.4% Y/Y.
Factory Orders – Last up 1.9% Y/Y.
International Trade – Last monthly trade deficit at $39.1 billion.
Producer Price Index – Last at +1.4% Y.Y.
Retail Sales – Last up 4.7% Y/Y.
Business Inventories – Last inventories-to-sales at 1.28.
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program / Food Stamps – Last SNAP-to-Employed at 33.2%.
Treasury Statement – Last 12 month budget deficit at $680.1 billion.

All U.S. leading economic indicators, where they currently stand, what their trend has been, and how their current status relates to the historical movement in that indicator.