General: The subprime loan crisis simply refuses to go away. Banks and other financial institutions continue to write down huge amounts of capital lost in failed mortgages, and the number of American homeowners who are losing their homes continues to rise. Interest rates are low, but there is no perceptible improvement in the US growth rate. What's even worse is that inflation and unemployment rates continue to creep upwards. Consumer spending is stagnant, and consumer confidence has plummeted. The picture is not pretty.
GDP: +0.6% in February
Consumer Prices: +4.0% in February, still uncomfortably high
Industrial Production: +1.0% in February (-0.5% compared to January)
Purchasing Managers Index (PMI): The Institute for Supply Management reported an index of 48.6 in March up from a revised 48.3 in February. Though it is an improvement, a reading below 50 signifies falling business activities. Other indexes are as follows:
New Orders: 46.5 (from 49.1), contracting for the fourth consecutive month
Production: 48.7 (50.7), contracting
Employment: 49.2 (46.0) contracting for the fifth consecutive month despite being ahead of February's index
Inventories: 44.9 (45.4), contracting for the 23rd consecutive month
Customers' Inventories: 51.0 (49.0) direction is ‘too high'
Producer Prices: +6.9% in March
Consumer Confidence Index: 64.5 in March, continuing the downward spiral from 76.4 in February and 87.9 in January
Unemployment: 5.1% in March
Trade Balance: -$819.2 billion at end of January for the latest 12 months
Housing Industry: Housing starts in March fell 11.9% compared to February to an annual seasonally adjusted rate of 947,000 units. This is a decline of 36.5% compared to March 2007. Building permits for private housing fell 5.8% compared to February to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 927,000 units. Compared to March 2007 they were down by 40.9%. The median existing home price for all types was $195,900 in February, or 8.2% less than last year. A total of 4.03 million existing homes remained unsold in February. This represents an inventory of 9.6 months based on the current sales rate and is actually slightly lower than January's rate of 10.2 months.
Automotive Production: 770,967 units were produced in March, or 24.0% less than in March 2007. In the first three months of 2008, 2,505,955 units were produced, or 9.8% less than last year.
Steel Production: 8.1 (e) million mt in February, or 5.5% more than last year. In the first two months, 16.7 million mt were produced, or 10.1 % ahead of last year.
Currency: US$1 = €0.63 as of April 16 (0.74 last year)