US economic overview - December 14, 2006

General: Though the US economy continues to slow down as it was engineered to by the Federal Reserve, it seems increasingly likely that the feared recession for 2007 can be avoided. After the Federal Reserve kept the benchmark interest rate steady for the fourth consecutive time, Wall Street is looking forward to possible rate cuts late in the first quarter of 2007. Housing and automotive sales are still bad, but retail sales in November were unexpectedly strong. The Institute for Supply Management reported that purchasing managers were optimistic about 2007. The falling dollar and strong demand in Europe (particularly in Germany) have helped exports to increase significantly. GDP: + 2.2% in Q3 (compared to Q3 2005); expected growth for 2006 will be around 3.3% Consumer Prices: + 1.3% in October, projected increase for 2006 is + 3.3% over last year Producer Prices: - 1.6% in October (+ 5.9% a year ago) Industrial Production: + 4.9% in October Housing: Housing starts in October were 1,486,000 units for single-family homes. This is 7.6% below September's number and 27.4% below October 2005. On the bright side: mortgage applications have gone up substantially in the last two weeks. Unemployment: 4.5% in November (4.4% in September and 5.0% in November 2005); 132,000 new jobs were created in November, despite a loss of 15,000 manufacturing jobs and 29,000 construction jobs Automobile Production: 865,823 units in November (-6.6% compared to November 2005), year-to-date November 10,471,943 units were produced, 5.9% less than in the same period last year Currency: US$1 = Euro .76 as of December 14 (US$1 = Euro .84 a year ago) Steel Production: 7.810 million mt (e) in October compared to 8.421 million mt in September. Compared to October 2005, the pace is off by 4.7%. Year to date October, 83.822 million mt were produced, which is 7.9% ahead of last year's output. Trade Balance: narrowed to - $ 58.9 billion in October, for the year it stands at - $ 842.2 billion as of October. But the trade gap with China continues to widen. Year-to-date October figures showed a US deficit of $190.63 billion, well on its way to surpass last year's mark of -$ 201.66 billion Trade Miscellany: According to figures by the World Trade Organization, the US did not file any antidumping investigation in the first half of 2006. Zero. The leader is India with 20 cases.