Revisions to Employment and Retail Sales and What They Mean
What's more exciting than the NCAA Final Four?
Data revisions! (well, not really, but for those of you who follow economic indicators closely, data revisions are important).
First and foremost, income drives consumer spending; that’s why the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis monthly release of income receives so much attention. Today’s release showed that income increased 0.3 percent and the gains in January and February were revised upward (January’s report initially showed a 1.0 percent leap and is now estimated to have increased by 1.2 percent, and December’s gain was revised from 0.4 percent to 0.5 percent -- we’ll talk more about revisions to several economic series later in the week). Recall that January’s outsized gain was driven largely by the lower tax withholdin
As GDP releases go, this one doesn’t garner much attention because of the limited amount of new information. The new information that merits some discussion includes revisions and profits. First up, revisions. GDP growth was revised up from 2.8 percent at an annual rate to 3.1 percent. How large is the typical revision? 0.3 percentage point, so today’s revision is of average size. Also, if you recall last month, the numbers were revised down by 0.4 percentage point. What does all of this mean? It means that the economy was growing at about a 3 percent annual rate at the end of last year, and today’s revision doesn’t alter the fundamental view of what is happ
A closely watched component of tomorrow’s GDP release by the U.S. Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) will be corporate profits. Corporate profits receive lots of attention for a variety of reasons. One of those reasons is that corporate profits touch many of us through the linkage between profits (and future expected profits) and stock prices, as those stock prices affect the value of our 401k and other retirement plans.
Today, the U.S. Census Bureau released advance durable goods data for February 2011. The report contains a couple of noteworthy themes, one being that part of the manufacturing sector continues to expand (with the help of foreign demand), and another being that the pace of investment might be slowing some in the first quarter.
Today we’re talking about newly released data from the U.S. Census Bureau on new business starts, why new business startups dropped off so much in 2009, and the wide array of policy responses that have been deployed to boost entreprenuership going forward.
We hear a lot about our country’s insatiable appetite for foreign-made goods. However, it is easy to forget that our trading partners also have an increasing appetite for American-made durable goods (where "durable goods" includes such things as computers, furniture, aircraft, machinery, ....). In fact, over the past decade, a growing share of our manufactured goods has been heading overseas. Although the worldwide recession temporarily reversed this trend in 2009, exports rebounded strongly last year and accounted for roughly half of the overall growth in durable goods shipments.
On Wednesday, March 16th, the Commerce Department’s Census Bureau will release February data on housing starts and building permits. After experiencing a huge downturn, private forecasters expect housing activity to improve appreciably during 2011 and 2012. The Blue Chip consensus expects housing starts to increase about 13 percent during 2011 and an additional 30 percent during 2012.
The bottom line from today’s report on retail sales is that consumer spending continues to increase, even after a surge in spending late last year. February retail sales increased 1.0 percent and the increases in retail sales in the previous two months were revised upward. Taken together, the January-February average of retail sales rose 7.7 percent at an annual rate over the fourth quarter. Why are consumers spending more? There are a couple of reasons, with the two most important likely being an improving job market (remember that payroll employment went up 192,000 in February and there was an upward revision of 58,000 to the previous two months) and the two-percentage-poin
The U.S. trade deficit in goods and services widened from $40.3 billion in December to $46.3 billion in January, a change that reflected a healthy increase in exports coupled with a really, really big increase in imports. Let’s talk about exports first. Exports rose 2.7 percent in January (an increase of $4.4 billion), and reached an all-time record (in nominal terms). The January increase wasn’t driven by a single factor, instead many categories of exports increased (for instance, sometimes the changes in the monthly export numbers are driven by changes in civilian aircraft – in January, our exports of civilian aircraft actually decreased).
