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Economy in Brief
U.S. Mortgage Applications Decline as Interest Rates Continue to Increase
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U.S. Consumer Confidence Increases in February
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The price of regular gasoline strengthened to $2.63 per gallon (6.8% y/y) in the week ended February 22...
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The EMU headline rose by 0.8% in January, its first year-on-year gain in six months...
Viewpoints
Commentaries are the opinions of the author and do not reflect the views of Haver Analytics.
by Tom Moeller June 2, 2005
Factory inventories rose just 0.1% in April following an upwardly revised 0.7% gain in March. These gains lowered the three month growth in inventories to 5.8%, nearly half the high rate of accumulation set last summer.
These figures have been bloated by the surge in oil prices. Less petroleum, factory inventories rose 0.1% (8.1% y/y) in April and the three month rate of accumulation slowed to 5.1% versus 10.9% in August.
A slower rate of inventory accumulation has been notable in the furniture industry where three month growth fell to 2.8% from a high of 28.4%. Accumulation of electrical equipment about halved to 9.6% and the level of computer inventories has declined versus a double digit rate of accumulation last summer. The slowdown in other industries has been widespread.
Factory shipments rose a firm 0.7% but here again the trend has weakened. Three month growth fell to 3.1% from a high of 20.4%. Less petroleum recent growth in shipments has been negative versus 17% growth a year ago.
Orders to the factory sector rose 0.9%, juiced by a 1.9% rise in durable goods orders which was unrevised from the advance report.
Unfilled orders were unchanged and the ratio of unfilled orders to shipments fell to a new low.
Do Technological Improvements in the Manufacturing Sector Raise or Lower Employment? from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia can be found here.
Factory Survey (NAICS) | April | March | Y/Y | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Inventories | 0.1% | 0.7% | 8.6% | 7.5% | -1.3% | -1.8% |
New Orders | 0.9% | 0.7% | 6.8% | 10.9% | 3.7% | -1.9% |
Shipments | 0.7% | 1.6% | 7.8% | 10.5% | 2.6% | -2.0% |
Unfilled Orders | 0.0% | -0.2% | 6.3% | 9.1% | 4.2% | -6.1% |