Economic Update

RETAIL SALES UP 0.3% IN FEBRUARY Weather didn’t stop Americans from shopping last month. February’s headline gain in retail sales was the first in three months and represented a nice turnaround from the (revised) 0.6% drop measured by the Commerce Department for January. Minus car and truck buying, the February increase was still 0.3%. Sales…

ECONOMY ADDS 175,000 MORE JOBS February’s payroll growth was decent, and seemingly unimpeded by the weather. Last month’s net jobs gain approximated the 12-month average of 179,000 recorded by the Labor Department, which also revised January and December totals north by a collective 25,000 hires. Few of the 264,000 new participants in the job hunt…

MORE MILD INFLATION Consumer prices ticked up 0.1% for January while wholesale prices rose 0.2%. Analysts polled by MarketWatch expected both the headline Consumer Price Index and Producer Price Index to advance 0.1%. The bigger news item (perhaps) is that the Labor Department altered its calculation of producer prices for the first time in 36…

WAS IT THE WEATHER, OR THE ECONOMY?   For a second straight month, hiring was weak. Employers added 113,000 jobs in January, and while the unemployment rate ticked down to 6.6%, the Labor Department’s latest report came with some caution flags. Private-sector payrolls expanded by 142,000 new positions, but 29,000 federal workers were let go…

CONSUMER MORALE, CONSUMER SPENDING IMPROVE   On Friday, the Commerce Department announced that consumer spending rose 0.4% in December, even as consumer incomes stayed flat. The University of Michigan’s final January consumer sentiment index came in at 81.2 (up 0.8 points from December) and the Conference Board’s January consumer confidence index posted a reading of…

MORE HOMES MOVE IN DECEMBER Last month saw a 1.0% gain in existing home sales, a nice change for this key economic indicator after a few subpar months. Analysts surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires anticipated sales improving 0.6%. The National Association of Realtors did revise November’s sales decline to 5.9% (it had been 4.3%). GAUGE…

INFLATION RISES IN DECEMBER Labor Department reports showed the Consumer Price Index up 0.3% last month (with core CPI rising 0.1%) and the Producer Price Index advancing 0.4% (core PPI went north 0.3%). If these spikes foreshadow greater inflation for 2014, they do little to alter the big picture of 2013 – a year in…

INTERPRETING A PERPLEXING JOBS REPORT Why did the economy generate only 74,000 new jobs last month? Why did 347,000 people drop out of the job hunt to leave the labor participation rate at 62.8%, the lowest in 35 years? Was it the weather? Maybe. As a note from Capital Economics mentions, the Labor Department found…

Was 2013 a terrific year for stocks? Absolutely. The good news wasn’t limited to Wall Street, however: the unemployment rate fell, the economy revved up, home prices rose and inflation pressure was minimal. Bulls triumphed. Christmas Eve brought the Dow’s 49th record close of 2013: 16,357.55. The S&P 500 settled at 1,833.32 on December 24…

A MAJOR GAIN FOR A CONSUMER CONFIDENCE INDEX The Conference Board’s monthly gauge of consumer confidence came in at 78.1 for December, beating the 76.0 median forecast from economists polled by Bloomberg. In November, it stood at 72.0. The index is way up from where it once was: its average reading was just 53.7 during…