Recent Updates
- Kazakhstan: Labor Productivity Index (Q4)
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- Philippines: Public Finance (Mar); Thailand: Domestic Car Sales Press (Mar); China: Business Climate (Q4); Korea: Consumer Survey Index, Inflation Expectations (Apr), Trade Indexes (Mar); Bangladesh: IP (Dec); Taiwan: TIER Business Outlook (Mar)
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Economy in Brief
U.S. New Home Sales and Prices Strengthen
Sales of new single-family homes during March increased 4.0% (8.8% y/y) to 694,000 (SAAR)...
U.S. FHFA House Price Index Continues to Strengthen
The FHFA index of U.S. house prices rose 0.6% during February...
U.S. Energy Prices Rise Further
Retail gasoline prices increased to $2.80 per gallon last week (14.3% y/y)...
Italian Confidence Backtracks But Remains High-Valued As It Is for France and Germany
From Q1 2008 to date, Italian GDP actually has failed to grow and has declined by 5.8%...
U.S. Existing Home Sales & Prices Rise Again
The NAR reported that sales of existing homes increased 1.1% during March (-1.2% y/y) to 5.600 million units (AR)...
by Tom Moeller February 1, 2008
The University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index for all of last month did improve by 3.8% m/m to a reading of 78.4. But that gain was reduced by nearly one half from the rise reported at mid-month. A level for the month of 79 had been expected.
The current conditions index rose by 3.7% m/m, half the rise reported initially. The gain in current conditions for buying large household goods was reduced to 6.6% (-12% y/y). The gain in the view of current personal finances disintegrated to zero (-20.3% y/y) following two months of decline.
Improvement in expected business conditions during the next year was lowered slightly to 3.8% m/m (-22.3% y/y). Expectations for business conditions during the next five years disappeared (-42.4% y/y) but expectations for personal finances were slightly improved and rose 3.6% (-8.7% y/y).
Expectations for inflation during the next twelve months slipped to 4.0%. For the next five to ten years expectations similarly slipped to a 3.4% rise in prices, equal to the expected gain during all of last year.
Opinions about government policy rose, but by a reduced 5.4% m/m (-18.8% y/y).
The University of Michigan survey is not seasonally adjusted.The reading is based on telephone interviews with about 500 households at month-end; the mid-month results are based on about 300 interviews. The summary indexes are in Haver's USECON database, with details in the proprietary UMSCA database.
University of Michigan | Jan (Final) | Jan (Prelim) | Dec | Nov | Jan y/y | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Consumer Sentiment | 78.4 | 80.5 | 75.5 | 76.1 | -19.1% | 87.3 | 88.5 | 95.2 |
Current Conditions | 94.4 | 98.1 | 91.0 | 91.5 | -15.2% | 105.1 | 105.9 | 105.6 |
Expectations | 68.1 | 69.1 | 65.6 | 66.2 | -22.3% | 75.9 | 77.4 | 88.5 |