Recent Updates
- ** New Zealand's Jobs Online Report has been delayed by the source, MBIE, until 6:00 PM ET 4/26.**
- UK: RICS Commercial Market Survey (Q1) Mortgage and Consumer Lending, Average Precipitation (Mar)
- Markit PMI: Manufacturing Survey - Austria (Apr)
- Germany: GfK Consumer Climate Survey, BA-X Job Index (Apr)
- Spain: Mortgage Market, Labor Force Survey (Q1)
- Kyrgyz Republic: Foreign Trade (Feb), State Budget, Foreign Reserves (Mar); Russia: Buildings Put in Place (Q1); Bulgaria:
- more updates...
Economy in Brief
Japan Shows Very Moderate Growth As Trade War Clouds Gather
Japan’s sector indexes showed a solid gain in February...
U.S. Consumer Confidence Unexpectedly Rose in April
The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index rose to 128.7 in April from 127.0 (initially reported as 127.7) in March...
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)...
by Tom Moeller May 1, 2009
During March, the manufacturing sector continued to shed inventories at near a record rate. The 0.8% decline followed a revised 1.3% cutback during February. During the last three months the 12.1% annualized rate of stock-pile decumulation was near the record. The series dates back to 1958. That accelerated rate is in spite of a 1.0% rate of accumulation in petroleum inventories, now that prices have firmed. Excluding oil factory inventories fell at a 12.6% three-month rate that was only slightly exceeded in 2001.
The three-month rates of inventory destocking in several industries have been more than notable. Inventories of electrical equipment & appliances have fallen at a 24.1% rate while textile product inventories were down at a 34.8% clip. Steep production cutbacks pulled furniture inventories down at a 21.8% rate since December while inventories of primary metals fell at a 32.5% pace. Lesser rates of decline were registered in the machinery industry (-12.3%) and by computers & electronic products (-11.9%).
The Manufacturers' Shipments, Inventories and Orders (MSIO) data is available in Haver's USECON database.
Inventory accelerator in general equilibrium from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis is available here.
Factory Survey (NAICS, %) | March | February | Y/Y | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Inventories | -0.8 | -1.3 | -3.8 | 2.1 | 3.7 | 8.2 |
Excluding Transportation | -0.8 | -1.5 | -6.4 | -0.6 | 2.7 | 7.9 |
New Orders | -0.9 | 0.7 | -21.6 | 0.1 | 1.9 | 6.2 |
Excluding Transportation | -0.9 | 0.5 | -19.0 | 3.1 | 1.2 | 7.4 |
Shipments | -1.2 | -0.5 | -17.1 | 1.7 | 1.2 | 5.9 |
Excluding Transportation | -1.5 | -0.6 | -17.3 | 3.7 | 1.5 | 6.7 |
Unfilled Orders | -1.5 | -1.7 | -4.8 | 3.5 | 17.1 | 15.3 |
Excluding Transportation | -1.5 | -2.1 | -8.7 | -1.0 | 8.2 | 16.0 |