General: The latest growth rates seem to indicate that a full fledged recession has likely been avoided. But the two key industries, housing and automotive, continue to be stuck in their negative cycles. June's Purchasing Managers' Index was a pleasant surprise but the second consecutive month of negative growth in Industrial Production gives cause for concern.
GDP: +2.5% in Q1, +1.0% over Q4
Consumer Prices: +4.2% at end of May for the past twelve months, +0.6% over April
Industrial Production: -0.2% in May; following a sharper decrease of -0.7% in April
Producer Prices: +7.2% in May
Unemployment: 5.5% in June
Trade Deficit: $60.9 bn in April and $831.2 bn for the latest twelve months
Housing: Housing starts fell to 975,000 in May. which is 3.3% less than April and 32.1% under last year. Housing permits in May fell 1.3% to 969,000 units compared to April, which is 36.3% under last year's level. Existing home sales increased slightly in May over April but fell 15.9% short of last year. At the current sales rate, the inventory of unsold homes translates into10.8 months, which is down from 11.2 in April. The median home price in May was $208,600 compared to $222,700 in May 2007.
Automotive Industry: 753,592 units were produced in May or 26.0% less than last year. In the first five months of the year 4,067,095 units were produced or 13.7% less than last year. Automotive sales plummeted dramatically in June. Compared to last year the volume of Chrysler was down by 36.0%, Ford's was 29.0% less and General Motors' was down by 19.0%. Even Toyota's volume was down 21%. Still, their Corolla / Matrix was June's best selling car in the US.
Steel Production: 8.56 million metric tons in May or 0.5% ahead of last year. In the first five months, 42.4 million mt were produced or 5.4% ahead of last year.
Purchasing Managers' Index: According to the Institute for Supply Management, the PMI rose to 50.2 in June from 49.6 in May. Any number over 50 signifies growth. Other data in that report were as follows:
New Orders: 49.6 (49.7 May) - trend is "contracting"
Production: 51.5 (51.2) - "growing"
Inventories: 51.2 (48.0) - "growing"
Customers' Inventories: 55.0 (47.0) - "too high"
Backlog Orders: 47.5 (46.0) - "contracting"
Overall Economy: "growing" (80th consecutive months!)
Currency: US$1 = Euro 0.63 as of July 2 (0.73 a year ago)