Recent Updates
- US: Wholesale Trade (Feb), Producer Prices (Mar)
- US: Producer Price Indexes by Commodity Detail (Mar)
- US: Producer Price Indexes by Industry Detail (Mar)
- Canada: Investment in Building Construction (Feb), Labor Force Survey (Mar)
- more updates...
Economy in Brief
U.S. Wholesale Inventories Post Strong February Gain; Sales Fall
Wholesale inventories increased 0.6% (2.0% y/y) during February...
U.S. Initial Unemployment Insurance Claims Unexpectedly Increase
Initial claims for unemployment insurance rose to 744,000 during the week ended April 3...
Total PMIs Gain Traction in March
The PMI readings for March show improvement again...
U.S. Consumer Credit Outstanding Bounces Back in February
Consumer credit outstanding surged $27.6 billion during February...
U.S. Trade Deficit Widens to Record during February
The U.S. trade deficit in goods and services widened to $71.1 during February...
Viewpoints
Commentaries are the opinions of the author and do not reflect the views of Haver Analytics.
by Charles Steindel April 22, 2020
The Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank has issued estimates of state coincident indexes for March, and the results are truly ugly. The Bank's release shows a map illustrating three-month changes, and it is largely a frightening field of red. Three-month changes seem a bit academic at this point. Looking at the changes from February it's a bit surprising to see 14 states coming in with upticks—arguably a reflection of the plunge only so far lasting one month, so it's possible those small gains will not be there when April information comes in. Alaska and Hawaii had the largest increases.
24 states had one-month declines larger than 1 percent, with West Virginia down an astonishing 5.2 percent, Kentucky off 4.5 percent, and Nevada dropping 4.4 percent. In the very largest states, California fell more than 2 percent—surely a reflection of its early lockdown—Florida was off 1.6 percent—the delay locking down there didn't prevent the shrinkage of travel (clearly evident in Nevada's collapse) dragging the state down, notwithstanding the large news coverage of spring break—New York was down 1.5 percent, and even Texas fell a marked .9 percent; larger than the national figure of .5 percent, likely heavily affected by the fall-off in energy extraction and refining.