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Apr 17, 2024
Nominal usual weekly earnings rose by 3.5% on a year-ago basis in the first quarter of 2024 while CPI rose by 3.2% from a year earlier in the same period. The first quarter's 3.5% increase is a deceleration from the closing quarter of 2023 which saw a 5.5% gain in median weekly earnings. Part-time workers saw a larger increase as wages rose 4.8% from a year-earlier.
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Apr 15, 2024
Global businesses are feeling better at the start of this year. While it is premature to conclude that business sentiment is definitively on the mend, this improvement is encouraging. Businesses are meaningfully more upbeat in their responses to the broad questions concerning present business conditions and prospects for business through this summer. The most significant blemish in the survey is soft sales, with one-third of respondents saying they are weakening.
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Mar 29, 2024
Real consumer spending growth remains inconsistent month to month but with a healthy trend. Real spending bounced back from its January decline in February, rising 0.4%, after dropping 0.2%, in January (revised from down 0.1%) and rising 0.5% in December (0.6% before revision). Spending growth will be modest, given the weights of modest real income growth, high interest rates, and still-high inflation. Vehicle spending contributed to the gain while service spending was modestly undermined by a weather-driven drop in utility spending. Prices rose 0.3% in aggregate and nominal spending rose 0.8% after rounding. Given modest income growth, the saving rate fell to 3.6% compared with 4.1% in January.
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Mar 26, 2024
According to the Richmond Fed Manufacturing Survey, manufacturing contracted in March. After improving in February, the headline diffusion index ticked down again to -11 in March from -5 in February. Of the component indexes, only the shipments index increased, inching up from -15 to -14 but still solidly in contractionary territory. The new orders index slumped from -5 to -17 while the employment index fell from 7 to 0.
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Mar 25, 2024
New residential sales moved sideways in February. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 662,000 annualized units were sold during the month, which is largely unchanged from January's revised rate of 664,000. From a year ago, new residential sales are up nearly 6%. The inventory of new homes for sale climbed to 463,000 units, and the months' supply of inventory at the current pace of sales was 8.4. The median sales price for a new home was $400,500, which is more than 7% below the median price of a new home sold in February 2023.
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Mar 22, 2024
State and regional employment is stabilizing as significant employment gains cool from January to February. The unemployment rate was largely unchanged in most states, although three states experienced a decline in their jobless rate and three other states experienced an increase.
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Mar 19, 2024
The Moody's Delinquency Tracker total delinquency rate edged up 4 basis points to 5.11% in February. The office and retail sectors contributed the most to this month's increase. The property type delinquency rates were mixed this month. All regional delinquency rates rose this month, except for the Midwest delinquency rate.
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Feb 21, 2024
According to the minutes from January's Federal Open Market Committee meeting, policymakers believe the risk of cutting rates too soon remains greater than the risk of waiting too long. Inflationary data released since January's FOMC meeting has likely strengthened their resolve. Unanimously, the rate-setting FOMC decided to keep the target range of the fed funds rate at 5.25% to 5.5% in January. When they reconvene in a month, they are likely to do the same. Our February baseline places the first rate cut at May's meeting.
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Feb 16, 2024
The University of Michigan consumer sentiment index maintained its gains of the last two months as it inched higher in February, according to the preliminary report. The index came in at 79.6, little changed from January's 79 but still impressively up from November's 61.3. This took the index to its highest level since July 2021. Inflation expectations changed little. Median 12-month inflation expectations inched up from 2.9% to 3%. Five-year expectations held steady at 2.9%. The change in confidence from January was led by the expectations component, which rose 1.3 points. The present conditions component dropped 0.4 point.
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Feb 07, 2024
Mortgage activity ticked up slightly in the week ending February 2 after sharply declining the week before. The MBA's market composite index rose 3.7% on the previous week, when the index tumbled 7.2%. Purchase applications were a drag for the second week in a row, falling a modest 0.6%, but refinance applications picked up the slack, jumping 12.3%. The 30-year fixed mortgage rate has been relatively stable over the past month, inching up 2 basis points this week, while being just 1 bp below its month-ago level. At 6.8%, however, the rate is a full 62 bps higher than a year earlier, reflecting tighter financing conditions and therefore headwinds for the mortgage market in 2024.
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