Economy in Brief: March 2011

Builders were kept off the job during January for the second consecutive month by severe winter weather. The value of construction put-in-place fell 0.7% following a revised 1.6% December decline, originally reported as down 2.5%. The [...]

After earlier strength, sales at chain stores slipped 0.5% at the end of last month. For February overall, sales ticked up 0.1% from the January average which was down 1.0% from December. During the last ten years there has been a 66% [...]

Last month, the Composite Index of activity in the factory sector from the Institute for Supply Management increased to 61.4 from an unrevised 60.8 in January. The figure beat consensus expectations for a reading of 60.6. The latest [...]

Strength in energy prices continues unabated. The pump price for regular gasoline last week surged nineteen cents to $3.38 per gallon, the highest since October-2008 and double the December-2008 low of $1.61. Typically, pump prices [...]