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Economy in Brief
Composite PMIs...the Best of Times; the Worst of Times-Really?
PMI data now rank observations on their range of values since December 2016...
U.S. Housing Starts Rise Again in December
Housing starts increased 5.8% (5.2% y/y) during December to 1.669 million...
Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index Jumps in January
The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia Factory Sector Business Conditions Index jumped to January to 26.5...
U.S. Initial Jobless Claims Ease, but Are Still High
Initial claims for unemployment insurance fell to 900,000 in the week ended January 16...
French Surveys Improve Despite Ongoing Virus Issues
The spread of the virus in Franc is still untamed...
Viewpoints
Commentaries are the opinions of the author and do not reflect the views of Haver Analytics.
by Charles Steindel September 28, 2018
The Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank's estimates of state coincident activity show that all states have grown over the last 12 months. As was noticed for the job numbers, there are some signs of convergence in growth over that period. Only 5 states reported gains of less than 2 percent, with the lowest Arkansas' 1.3 percent (the national figures was 2.9 percent). New Mexico, at 5.9 percent, clocked the biggest gain, and most of the other states reporting increases above 4 percent also located in the West. Along with Arkansas, the more slowly growing states were generally concentrated in or near the lower Mississippi Valley (Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas—but Maryland was also in the group).
More recently (the last 3 months), 4 states have seen declines in activity: Louisiana, Kentucky, Alabama, and Maine, and 7 other states had meager gains of .5 percent or lower. Nearly half the states, though, experienced quite solid gains of 1 percent or higher, with Montana seeing an increase as high as its mountains (2.8 percent).
The general picture then seems to be one of fairly widespread growth, though that is at longer horizons. There is a bit of froth in the higher frequency numbers.