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August’s trade deficit and wholesale inventories

The only major agency reports released this week were the August report on our International Trade from the Commerce Dept, and the August report on Wholesale Trade, Sales and Inventories from the Census Bureau… Major privately issued reports released during the week included the September Services Report On Business from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM), which reported that their Services PMI fell to 54.9% in September, down from 55.4% in August, which would indicate that a smaller plurality of service sector purchasing managers continued to report improving metrics for the key facets of their business in September, and the Mortgage Monitor for October , which now comes from the Mortgage Technology unit of ICE, and which indicated that 3.53% of all mortgages were delinquent in August, up from the 3.39% of mortgages that were delinquent in July, and up from the 3.43% delinquency rate of August 2025, and that 0.54% of all mortgages were in the foreclosure process in August, u...
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3rd estimate of Q2 GDP and annual revision; September’s jobs report, August’s income and outlays, construction spending, factory inventories, and JOLTS

The major economic releases of last week were the 3rd estimate of 2nd quarter GDP from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, which included an annual revision covering the prior five years, and the August report on Personal Income and Spending , also from the BEA, which includes two months of data on personal consumption expenditures and hence will account for more than 47% of 3rd quarter GDP, the Employment Situation Summary for September and the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) for August, both from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the August report on Construction Spending (pdf) and the Full Report on Manufacturers’ Shipments, Inventories and Orders for August , both from the Census Bureau…in addition, this week also saw the last regional Fed manufacturing survey for September: the Dallas Fed Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey , which covers Texas and adjacent western Louisiana and southeastern New Mexico, reported its general business activity edged down to +9.8 in ...
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August’s durable goods and new home sales

There were just two widely watched economic reports released last week: the August advance report on durable goods and the August report on new home sales , both from the Census bureau…meanwhile, the week also saw the release of the Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI) for August , a weighted composite index of 85 different economic metrics, which fell to to –0.04 in August from +0.08 in July, after the July index was revised up from –0.08 to +0.08; that left the more often cited 3 month moving average of the index at +0.01 in August, up from a revised –0.01 in July, with those figures for both months so close to zero that both would indicate that national economic activity has been near the historical trend over the summer months.. The week also saw the release of two more regional Fed manufacturing surveys for September: the Kansas City Fed manufacturing survey , covering western Missouri, Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Wyoming and northern New Mexico, reported its bro...
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August’s retail sales, industrial production, and new housing construction; July’s business inventories

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Widely watched economic reports released last week included the Retail Sales Report for August and the Business Sales and Inventories report for July , both from the Census bureau, the August Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization report from the Fed, and the August report on New Residential Construction , also from the Census bureau.…in addition, on Friday the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the Regional and State Employment and Unemployment Report for August , a report which breaks down the two employment surveys from the monthly national jobs report by state and by region….while the text of that report provides a useful summary of this data, the serious statistics aggregation can be found in the tables linked at the end of the report, where one can find the civilian labor force data and the change in payrolls by industry for each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands… This week also saw the release of the first two regional Fed...
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