Tomorrow the Commerce Department and Labor Department will begin to work off the backlog of economic data collection and reporting that accumulated during the past several weeks.

Commerce expects to release the November report on housing starts and building permits tomorrow, and to update the third quarter Gross Domestic Product figure on Friday. The department said that it didn't expect to get back on its normal release schedule until May.

On Thursday, Labor is planning to catch up on the weekly reports on first-time filings for state unemployment insurance that have been missing since early December.

There is speculation among analysts and the media that, because of the shutdown of Labor and Commerce, the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee may not have sufficient information available to decide what to do about interest rates at its meeting at the end of January. That's for the Fed to decide; but, I have personally been impressed by the amount of information that was available despite the shutdown.

To begin with, the Federal Reserve was not affected by the shutdown; and the Fed, by way of monthly economic surveys conducted by each of its district banks, has been able to get a good reading on economic conditions all over the country. Then, there is the excellent report published monthly by the National Association of Purchasing Management. The NAPM, through surveys of its members, is able to obtain a comprehensive nationwide view of all facets of the manufacturing sector of the economy. Automobile sales figures are available on a regular schedule and provide insight into consumer buying patterns. And, it would be hard not to notice the message sent by consumers in the retail sales results during the holiday shopping season.

Based on the data available during the shutdown, I expect that, when all the government data becomes available, the Fed will find that the trend toward slowing economic growth that existed before the shutdown is still intact. In fact, because of the far-reaching economic effects of the shutdown, I wouldn't be surprised if the Fed found that the economy was weaker than might otherwise have been projected.

Byline: Lafferty (MF Merlin)