00:00 Speaker A
Time now for what to watch next week, starting off on Big Tech. Meta facing off against the Federal Trade Commission on Monday in an antitrust trial that may result in breaking up the company. Trial centers around the FTC’s allegations that meta is monopolizing the social networking market.
00:19 Speaker B
Shifting to the economy, we’ll be getting some insight into the consumer with US retail sales on Wednesday. Economists forecast total sales to increase to 1.4% while core retail sales slow to 0.4% on a month over month basis.
00:33 Speaker A
And taking a look at the Fed, we’ll hear from more Fed presidents throughout the week. This is coming after comments today from Boston Fed president, Susan Collins. Collins telling Yahoo Finance that she expects to hold rates for longer, but that a cut may still be possible at the end of 2025.
00:47 Speaker B
I’m moving over to housing. The monthly home builder confidence index comes out on Wednesday. That number expected to decline to 37. That would make it three straight drops in a row. And that’ll give us more insight into home builder sentiment in the US.
01:00 Speaker A
And sticking with housing, we’re going to be getting monthly housing starts and building permits data on Thursday. Cons expecting both starts and permits to decrease in March to 1.41 million and 1.45 million respectively on a month-over-month basis.