Economic Statistics for 26 Jan 12
Today’s economic statistical releases:
Durable goods orders for December rose a sharp 3%, and ex-transportation orders were up 2.1%. November orders were also revised upward sharply to 4.3% from 3.7%
Initial claims for unemployment rose 21,000 to 377,000. The 4-week moving average still dropped, however, to 377,500.
The Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index rose 1 point to -46.4.
The Chicago Fed reports its National Activity Index rose to 0.17 in December from -0.46 the prior month. The 3-month moving average stands at -0.19, which is slightly below-trend growth.
New home sales in December fell 2.2% to a disappointing 307,000 annual rate, well below analyst expectations of 320,000.
The Conference Board reports that the Index of Leading Economic Indicators—which has received a huge revision to the components that make it up—rose 0.4% last month. In the LEI, money supply has been removed in place of a new credit measure, and deliveries have been dropped in favor of the ISM New Orders index. As part of this makeover, previous months have been revised sharply downward to 0.2% and 0.6%.
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Dale Franks
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According to the Census Bureau, December New Home Sales declined from 321K to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 307K in December, on expectations of a rise to 321K from last month’s revised 315K. On a non-seasonally adjusted basis the US sold a whopping 21K homes, the lowest since January 2011, and on par with the lowest on record. What is more troubling is that according to Bloomberg, the 2011 number of 302K sales is the lowest on record. Of these 21K, 5K were not even started. So much for that housing recovery.
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