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April’s jobs report; March’s trade deficit, construction spending, new home sales, factory inventories, wholesale inventories, and JOLTS

Major economic reports released last week included the Employment Situation Summary for April and the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) for March, both from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Commerce Department’s report on our international trade in goods and services for March , and the March report on Construction Spending (pdf), the March report on new home sales , the Full Report on Manufacturers’ Shipments, Inventories and Orders for March , and the Wholesale Trade, Sales and Inventories report for March , all from the Census Bureau….in addition, the Fed released the Consumer Credit Report for March on Thursday of this week, which indicated that overall consumer credit, a measure of non-real estate debt, had grown by a seasonally adjusted $24.8 billion in March, or at a 5.8% annual rate, as non-revolving credit expanded at a 2.7% annual rate to $3,682.2 billion, while revolving credit outstanding grew at a 9.1% rate to $1,337.0 billion…for the first quarter of 2...
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1st Quarter GDP; March’s income and outlays, durable goods, and housing starts

The key economic releases from government agencies during the past week were the Advance Estimate of 1st quarter GDP and the concurrent March report on Personal Income and Spending , both from the Bureau of Economic Analysis; other widely watched releases included the March advance report on durable goods and the March report on New Residential Construction , both from the Census bureau… Major privately issued reports released during the week included the February Case-Shiller Home Price Index from S&P Case-Shiller, which indicated that their index of the relative average of December, January and February home prices was 0.7% higher than their index of average prices for the same homes that sold during the same 3 month period of a year earlier; the light vehicle sales report for April from Wards Automotive , which estimated that vehicles sold at a 16.4 million annual rate in April, up from the 16.3 million sales rate in March, but down from the 17.27 million annual sales rate re...
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March retail sales, February’s business inventories, etal

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Major monthly reports released last week were the Retail Sales report for March and the associated Business Sales and Inventories report for February , both from the Census Bureau, and the Regional and State Employment and Unemployment Report for February from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a report which breaks down the two employment surveys from the monthly national jobs report by state and region …while the text of that report provides a useful summary of the state and regional data, the serious statistical 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.. Also released last week was the Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI) for March , a weighted composite index of 85 different economic metrics, which decreased to –0.20 in March from +0.03 in February, after February’s inde...
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March producer prices, industrial production, and existing home sales

Major monthly reports released last week included the March Producer Price Index from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the March report on Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization from the Fed, and the Existing Home Sales Report for March from the National Association of Realtors (NAR)…. The week also saw the release of the first two regional Fed manufacturing surveys for April: the Empire State Manufacturing Survey from the New York Fed, which covers all of New York state, one NYC suburban county in Connecticut, Puerto Rico and northern New Jersey, reported their headline general business conditions index rose from –0.2 in March to +11.0 in April, which would indicate that a moderate plurality of First District manufacturers now see improvement in various facets of their business, after they were evenly split between those who reported improving conditions and those who saw deteriorating conditions in March…meanwhile, the Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Survey , covering most ...
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