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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 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.