The Economic Week Ahead: May 8-12

Another interesting week ahead. On Monday, the Fed will release the latest Senior Loan Officers Opinion Survey (SLOOS). It is likely to show a further sharp tightening in lending standards, especially for commercial real estate loans (chart). The members of the FOMC had a copy of the SLOOS report at their meeting last week, but decided to raise the federal funds rate nonetheless. They may come to regret their last two rate hikes which occurred as the banking crisis unfolded.

It's also a big week ahead for April's inflation stats on inflationary expectations (Mon), the CPI (Wed), and the PPI (Thu). The latter two should show that inflation continues to moderate on a y/y basis (chart).