Economy in Brief: October 2012

The housing market continues to firm. CoreLogic reported that home prices rose 0.3% in August following a 1.4% jump during July. It was the sixth consecutive month of increase but was the weakest (by far) of the gains. Nevertheless, [...]

Car shoppers were out in-force last month. Unit sales of light motor vehicles during September gained another 3.0% m/m (13.9% y/y) to 14.96M (SAAR) according to the Autodata Corporation. The gain raised sales to their highest since [...]

Chain store sales slipped 0.3% last week (+2.4% y/y). For September sales fell 1.4% from August adding to that month's 1.8% decline. During the last ten years there has been a 72% correlation between the y/y change in chain store [...]

The pump price of regular gasoline fell three cents last week to $3.80 per gallon. Less driving again helped pump prices move lower. Haver Analytics constructs seasonal factors to reflect this pressure. After adjustment the price for [...]

The overall September Purchasing Managers Survey for manufacturing improved slightly from 48.07 in August to 48.96 in September. (Values above 50 represent expansion while values under 50 represent contraction.) Most countries [...]

The value of construction put-in-place fell 0.6% during August after a 0.4% July decline, last month reported as -0.9%. A 0.5% rise had been expected. Private sector spending led the decline with a 0.5% drop (+12.1% y/y) after a 0.3% [...]

Activity in the manufacturing sector improved last month. The ISM Composite Index of industrial sector activity rose to 51.5 during September, the first month above the break-even level of 50 since May. Nevertheless, the improvement [...]