Business

Last night's unexpected API builds kneejerked prices lower but a weaker dollar helped levitate WTI/RBOB into the DOE print. While tropical depression Cindy may have affected the data, DOE reports a small build in crude (expectations for a draw) but all eyes were on gasoline which drew 894k, well below API's build levels and expectation of no change. Production in the Lower 48 fell 55k b/d - the biggest drop since Aug 2016 (likely impacted by Cindy).

API

As if Illinois didn't have enough to worry about between an imminent downgrade to junk (as soon as July 1), soaring debt costs, insolvent pension funds, and roads that may soon resemble the lunar surface, today in the latest insult to a relentless series of injuries, the lottery itself, including the popular Powerball and Mega Millions, is set to dump Illinois because the state literally can't afford to payout winners.

Student Loan Debt Problem Solved

via Soren K. Group and Marketslant.com

College ain't what it used to be. And student loans are paving the way to indentured servitude possibly for the next generation.

In one admittedly cynical scenario we see in the future a  large number of college graduates unable to repay student loans. We also see a government unable to disclose that default to thepublic and risk its own credit rating being downgraded. 

Student Loan Breakdown in 2017
?picture courtesy of Forbes 

This morning the House Financial Services Committee is holding a hearing that will evaluate how Federal Reserve policies are adversely affecting households, small businesses, savers, and retirees, and consider policy opportunities that the Federal Reserve could implement to improve economic opportunities for all.

The panel will include the following witnesses:

After modest bounces in existing and new home sales (despite weakness in starts and permits and mortgage application declines), pending home sales in May tumbled 0.8% MoM and were revised even lower (-1.7%) in April. This dismal print was below all economists' expectations, missing by 4 standard deviations.  

This is the 3rd straight monthly drop and 2nd straight annual decline in pending home sales.