General: Technically speaking, the economy has not gone into recession. But two successive quarters of 0.6% growth "feel" just like a recession. Oil prices are climbing to ever-new record levels, and inflation, thought to be under control for a long time, is rearing its ugly head again. Sales of existing homes fell another 1.0% in April indicating that the housing market has not turned the corner yet.
GDP: +0.6% in Q1, unchanged from Q4 of last year, +2.5% in Q1 compared to Q1 2007
Consumer Prices: +3.9% in April (2.6% a year ago)
Producer Prices: +6.9% in March
Industrial Production: +0.2% in April
Purchasing Managers Index (PMI): The Institute for Supply Management reported an index of 48.6 in April, unchanged from March. It is still in the "contracting" category for the third consecutive month. Other indexes are as follows:
New Orders: 46.5, unchanged from March, contracting for the fifth consecutive month
Production: 49.1 (50.7 in the previous month), contracting for the second month in a row
Employment: 45.4 (49.2), contracting for the sixth consecutive month
Inventories: 48.1 (44.9), contracting for the 24th consecutive month
Customers' Inventories: 45.0 (51.0), direction is "too low" from "too high" in February
Manufacturing: contracting for the third consecutive month
Overall economy: growing for the 78th consecutive month
Consumer Confidence Index: 62.3 in April, down from 65.9 in March. It was 90.0 in December 2007 and 105 in August of last year.
Unemployment: 5.0% in March
Trade Balance: -$58.2 billion in March (-$61.7 billion in February)
Housing Industry: Housing starts in April increased 8.4% over March and rose to slightly over 1.0 million units on an annual seasonally adjusted level. However, compared to last year it fell 30.6%. Building permits for private housing went up by 4.9% over March but remain below the one million mark on an annual seasonally adjusted level. Compared to April 2007 permits fell by 34.3%. A total of 4.89 million existing homes remained unsold in March. This represents an inventory of 11.2 months based on the current sales rate.
Automotive Production: 800,272 units were produced in April, or 12.8% less than in April 2007. In the first four months of 2008, 3,309,390 units were produced or 10.5% less than last year. A total of 1,243,632 light vehicles were sold in April, or 13.8% less than last year. Not surprisingly, the steepest drop was in the domestic light trucks category, which includes the gas-guzzling Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs). Sales here went down 25.6% compared to last year.
Steel Production: 8.5 million metric tons were produced in March, or 2.1% more than last year. In the first three months, 25.4 million mt were produced, or 7.9% ahead of last year.
Currency: US$1 = 0.63 Euro as of May 21 (0.74 last year)