News and Information from Strategic Real Estate Opportunities

New home sales in September 2009 declined 3.6% from August and decreased 7.8% from September 2008, to 402,000.

New orders for manufactured durable goods in September 2009 increased 1.0%, to $165.7 billion.  Excluding transportation, new orders rose 0.9%.  Overall shipments increased 0.8%, while non-defense capital goods shipments rose 2.2%.  Inventories declined 1.0% in September.

Building permits in September 2009 declined 1.2% from August and decreased 28.9% from September 2008, to 573,000.  Housing starts rose 0.5% from August but fell 28.2% from September 2008, to 590,000.

The Producer Price Index for Finished Goods declined 0.6 percent in September, seasonally adjusted. This decrease followed a 1.7 percent rise in August and a 0.9- percent decline in July. The index for finished goods less foods and energy edged down .1 percent in September after rising 0.2 percent in August.

On a seasonally adjusted basis, the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) rose 0.2 percent in September, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The increase was less than the 0.4 percent rise in August. The index has decreased 1.3 percent over the last 12 months on a not seasonally adjusted basis.

Real average hourly earnings fell 0.1 percent from August to September 2009. This decline stemmed from the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W), up by 0.2 percent, outpacing 0.1 percent growth in average hourly earnings. Over the year real average hourly earnings increased 4.4 percent.

The U.S. Census Bureau announced today that the combined value of distributive trade sales and manufacturers’ shipments for August, adjusted for seasonal and trading-day differences but not for price changes, was estimated at $989.6 billion, up 1.0 percent (±0.2%) from July 2009 and down 15.1 percent (±0.4%) from August 2008.

Wholesale inventories in August 2009 decreased 1.3% from July and declined 14.7% from August 2008, to $381.2 billion.  Sales rose 1.0% from the prior month but declined 17.7% from the prior year, to $317.9 billion.

New orders for manufactured goods in August 2009 declined 0.8%, to $352.9 billion.  Shipments fell 0.3%, unfilled orders decreased 0.4%, and inventories declined 0.8% from July 2009.

Nonfarm payroll employment continued to decline in September (-263,000), and the unemployment rate (9.8 percent) continued to trend up, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The largest job losses were in construction, manufacturing, retail trade, and government.

Since the start of the recession in December 2007, the number of unemployed persons has increased by 7.6 million to 15.1 million, and the unemployment rate has doubled to 9.8 percent.

Unemployment rates for the major worker groups–adult men (10.3 percent), adult women (7.8 percent), teenagers (25.9 percent), whites (9.0 percent), blacks (15.4 percent), and Hispanics (12.7 percent)–showed little change in September. The unemployment rate for Asians was 7.4 percent, not seasonally adjusted. The rates for all major worker groups are much higher than at the start of the recession. (more…)