Recent Updates
- Monthly Petroleum Consumption (Jul)
- Costa Rica: CPI (Jul)
- Czech Republic: Construction (Jun)
- Albania: Business and Consumers Survey, CPI (Jul)
- Uganda: PPI (Jun)
- more updates...
Economy in Brief
U.S. Consumer Credit Growth Surges in June
Consumer credit outstanding jumped $40.1 billion (7.7% y/y) in June...
Japan's LEI Waffles and Slows
Japan's leading economic index in June slipped to 100.6...
U.S. Foreign Trade Deficit Narrows in June
The U.S. trade deficit in goods and services (BOP basis) fell to $79.61 billion in June...
U.S. Unemployment Claims Remain on an Uptrend
Initial claims for unemployment insurance filed in the week ended July 30 rose 6,000 to 260,000...
RICS Survey Shows Weakening U.K. Housing Market
With the Bank of England hiking its key rate by 50 basis points and planning to squeeze its balance sheet...
Viewpoints
Commentaries are the opinions of the author and do not reflect the views of Haver Analytics.
Excess Demand for Goods Caused Supply Constraints
Q2 GDP Does Not Confirm Economic Recession, But It Does Confirm A Corporate Profit Recession
State Coincident Indexes in June 2022
State Labor Markets in June 2022
No Recession Call Can Be Made Before BEA Explains The Record Gap Between Income & Output
by Tom Moeller July 5, 2005
Factory inventories were unchanged in May following a downwardly revised slight decline in April. Three month growth in inventories fell to 2.7% (AR) from the peak rate of growth near 12% in March and that slowdown explains much of the slowdown in factory output growth.
Slower rates of inventory accumulation continue notable in the furniture industry where three month growth fell to 2.3% from versus the high of 28.4% and in the electrical equipment industry where growth in inventories fell to 6.0% with outright decumulation in May. The level of computer inventories has been declining this year with three month growth at -4.6% versus a peak of 13% last summer.
Factory shipments were roughly unchanged in May but three month growth improved to 9.2% due to rebounds in computers and heavy duty trucks.
Orders to the factory sector jumped 2.9% due to the unrevised 5.5% surge in durable goods orders.
Unfilled orders jumped 1.9% due to the 10.6% spike in unfilled orders for aircraft & parts. Less transportation altogether backlogs fell 0.1% (+7.6% y/y). The ratio of unfilled orders to shipments outside of transportation has moved sideways since early last year.
Trends in Hours, Balanced Growth and the Role of Technology in the Business Cycle from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis is available here.
Factory Survey (NAICS) | May | April | Y/Y | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Inventories | 0.0% | -0.0% | 7.7% | 7.5% | -1.3% | -1.8% |
New Orders | 2.9% | 0.7% | 9.3% | 10.9% | 3.7% | -1.9% |
Shipments | -0.0% | 0.7% | 7.2% | 10.5% | 2.6% | -2.0% |
Unfilled Orders | 1.9% | -0.1% | 7.5% | 9.1% | 4.2% | -6.1% |