The post-shutdown week provided an opportunity to review the fiscal feud’s result on the American economy, or rather the anticipation for it as expressed in September’s data. September’s Existing Home Sales, published Monday, presented a slight blow to U.S. real-estate activity, with an approximate 2% decrease from the previous month’s figure, to 5.29 million units changing hands. Tuesday’s labor data was quite a different story. With only a 148K increase in Nonfarm Payrolls, it seems that the shutdown’s blow to the U.S. labor market was harsher compared to August’s figure, which presented a higher number of jobs created, 193K. In September 2012, when the U.S. economy was deeper in the great recession, Nonfarm payrolls presented only a slightly lower 138K Nonfarm jobs created. The unemployment rate dropped down to 7.2%.
Additional slightly negative data on the U.S. market were presented Wednesday, as MBA Mortgage Applications decreased by -0.6%. Continuing its negative sentiment since the beginning of the Shutdown, Initial Jobless Claims was still high and revealed on Thursday that no less than 350K of those were made during last week. The University of Michigan’s Consumer Confidence presenting a decrease from a level of 75.2 to 73.2.
The U.S. investor sentiment was not affected much by all these, as that data could be considered as temporary responses to a unique situation. The Nasdaq index presented a mild, yet notable, 0.7% increase during the previous week. Similarly, a 0.9% increase was recorded at the S&P 500 index.
