A quick game of catch-up

I have been away on travel for one client and also engaged in a consulting gig with one of the more social statistics-oriented agencies. So, this is a quicker and dirtier than usual run through developments in economic statistics so far in February. Note that, after all that follows, my Good News Index (GNI) for February is at 17.9 percent as of today.

PPI: A 0.8 percent increase followed declines of 1.9 percent in December and 2.5 percent in November. At the earlier stages of processing, the decrease in prices for intermediate materials slowed to 0.7 percent from 4.2 percent, and the index for crude materials declined 2.9 percent after dropping 5.3 percent in December. Although this report contains some good news (declining rates of price deterioration), the topside number is outside the upper bound of my range of comfort, and the volatility itself is not useful at this point. (Bad news)

Housing starts and permits: Starts in January were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 466,000. This was 16.8 percent below December. (Bad news, and no surprise)

Industrial production and capacity utilization: Industrial production fell 1.8 percent in January. The capacity utilization rate for total industry fell to 72.0 percent. (Bad news)

International prices: The Import Price Index declined 1.1 percent in January, following decreases in each of the previous five months. In contrast, export prices rose for the first time in six months, advancing 0.5 percent in January. (Mixed, leaning to bad.)

Business sales: down 3.2 percent (±0.2%) from November 2008 and down 11.8 percent from December 2007. Inventories were down, but their ratio to sales edged up. (On balance, bad news)

Retail sales: Retail and food services sales for January, were $344.6 billion, an
increase of 1.0 percent from the previous month. (Good)

Balance of trade: December exports were $8.5 billion less than November exports of $142.3 billion. December imports were $10.2 billion less than November imports of $183.9 billion. (This is a bad news way to narrow the trade deficit—mixed on balance.)

Wholesale trade: December 2008 sales of merchant wholesalers were $336.1 billion, down 3.6 percent from November. Inventories fell, but their ratio to sales crept up. (Bad)

Employment: Nonfarm payroll employment fell 5908,00 in January and the unemployment rate rose from 7.2 to 7.6 percent. Our proprietary index of the labor market also declined sharply as all five indicators went the wrong way. (Bad)

Factory sales: New orders for manufactured goods in December, down five consecutive months, decreased $14.8 billion or 3.9 percent. This was the longest streak of consecutive monthly decreases in a decade and a half. The unfilled orders-to-shipments ratio was 5.82, down from 5.87 in November. The inventories-to-shipments ratio was 1.44, up from 1.42 in November. (Bad throughout)

Consumer credit: Consumer credit decreased at an annual rate of 3 percent in the fourth quarter. (Bad)

Productivity: Output per hour for the nonfarm business sector rose 3.2 percent as output declined 5.5 percent and hours fell 8.4 percent. (This is a bad way to increase productivity—mixed on balance.)

Personal Income and spending: Personal income decreased $25.3 billion, or 0.2 percent, and disposable personal income decreased $25.1 billion, or 0.2 percent, in December. Personal consumption expenditures decreased $102.4 billion, or 1.0 percent. (Bad both ways)

Construction spending: Construction spending during December 2008 was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1,053.7 billion, 1.4 percent below the revised November estimate. Just missed being neutral (the margin of error is + or – 1.3 percent), but still bad news. (Bad)

Housing vacancies: The rental vacancy rate was 10.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008—higher than the fourth quarter rate for 2007 (9.6 percent), but not statistically different from the rate last quarter (9.9 percent in III:08). For homeowner vacancies, the current rate of 2.9 percent was not statistically different from the fourth quarter 2007 rate or the rate last quarter (2.8 percent each). (Not used in the GNI)