Posts

September’s consumer & producer prices, retail sales, industrial production, and existing home sales; August’s business inventories

Image
Widely watched reports that were released last week included the September Consumer Price Index , the September Producer Price Index , and the September Import and Export Price Indexes , all from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Retail Sales report for September and the corresponding Business Sales and Inventories report for August , both from the Census Bureau, the report on Industrial production and Capacity Utilization for September from the Fed, and the Existing Home Sales Report for September from the National Association of Realtors (NAR)…. In addition, this week also saw the release of the first two regional Fed manufacturing surveys for October: the Empire State Manufacturing Survey for October from the New York Fed, which covers New York, northern New Jersey, and an adjacent county in Connecticut, reported their headline general business conditions index rose from +7.6 in September to +25.5 in October, the highest in almost five years, meaning that a significant majorit...

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...

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 ...