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Economy in Brief
U.S. Unemployment Claims Continue on an Uptrend
Initial claims for unemployment insurance filed in the week ended August 6 rose 14,000 to 262,000...
RICS Survey Points to More U.K. Housing Sector Weakness
The survey of housing market conditions in the U.K. continues to show strength in prices versus weakness...
U.S. CPI Unchanged in July with Drop in Energy Prices
Consumer prices were unchanged in July after an outsized 1.3% m/m jump in June...
U.S. Federal Government Budget Deficit Shrinks in July
The U.S. Treasury Department reported a federal budget deficit of $211.1 billion in July...
U.S. Mortgage Applications Rose Slightly in the Latest Week
Mortgage applications increased 0.2% (-62.9% y/y) from one week earlier...
Viewpoints
Commentaries are the opinions of the author and do not reflect the views of Haver Analytics.
by Carol Stone May 11, 2005
The surprising reduction in the US trade deficit for March begs for comparison with trade data reported today by other major countries. We've highlighted here the role of energy in two oil-producing nations, the UK and Canada, along with the US. In the US, the petroleum deficit continued to widen, but modestly, while the non-petroleum deficit fell sharply in the month, as described by Tom Moeller in the Haver.com homepage commentary for today.
In the UK, the overall trade deficit decreased to £4.4 billion in March from £5.1 billion in February. The non-oil deficit also decreased, but just slightly, reflecting a 1.8% rise in non-oil exports after two successive monthly declines. The oil surplus in the UK is marginal, and in some months, oil even runs a small deficit. The non-oil deficit had widened fairly consistently from 1997 through the middle of last year and has since begun to diminish gradually, as import growth has tended to slow.
Canada's trade balance was C$4.235 billion in March, up from C$4.155 billion in February. The energy surplus is drifting down a little, with the March value, C$3.4 billion, off from the 2004 average of C$3.7 billion. Exports of energy products have flattened in the last six month, but energy imports are trending upward, as seen in the second graph. The surplus in non-energy trade has fallen more distinctly with a modest slowing of those exports.
In both the US and the UK, non-energy imports have recently turned down. For the US, this is just a one-month development and could easily be reversed, but in the UK, March was the third month. Possibly the weight of energy on these economies is starting to restrain other purchasing from abroad. This is an important development to monitor.
Millions of Local Currency, Seasonally Adjusted |
Mar 2005 | Feb 2005 | Mar 2004 | Monthly Average|||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2004 | 2003 | 2002 | ||||
UK: Balance on Goods | -4,412 | -5,037 | -4,108 | -4,829 | -3,972 | -3,890 |
Balance on Oil | 384 | 44 | 193 | 163 | 344 | 478 |
Balance ex Oil | -4,796 | -5,081 | -4,519 | -4,992 | -4,316 | -4,368 |
Canada: Balance on Goods | 4,235 | 4,155 | 5,584 | 5,602 | 4,848 | 4,768 |
Balance on Energy | 3,386 | 3,053 | 3,164 | 3,693 | 3,406 | 2,738 |
Balance ex Energy | 849 | 102 | 2,420 | 1,909 | 1,442 | 2,030 |
US: Balance on Goods | -57,171 | -63,538 | -50,026 | -54,234 | -44,362 | -39,022 |
Balance on Petroleum | -16,992 | -16,343 | -13,013 | -13,653 | -10,034 | -7,764 |
Balance ex Petroleum | -41,179 | -47,195 | -37,013 | -40,582 | -34,329 | -31,258 |