Research >> Economics
BTMU U.S. Business Barometer dropped by 1.4%
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For the week ending July 11 2015, the BTMU U.S. Business Barometer dropped by 1.4 percent to 99.3, following a rise of 1.2 percent in the previous week. This week’s barometer was driven by weak performances in both production and consumption indexes. Truck production and Lumber production plunged by 17.1 and 13.5 percent, respectively. Along similar lines, chain store sales and MBA’s purchase index decreased by 1.0 and 7.5 percent, respectively. On the other hand, electric output went up by 7.7 percent and coal production increased by 1.3 percent. They were more than offset by losses in other indexes.
On a year-over-year basis, the barometer showed a gain of 0.5 percent, which compares to an average -3.3 percent decline over the Great Recession (ended in June 2009 according to the NBER). After flat lining in 2006, and declining from 2007 through 2009, the barometer bounced back in 2010 to rise by 3.4 percent, which was the strongest increase since 1994 (+4.0 percent), but not so impressive when compared to an -8.0 percent drop in 2009. The rate of increase for the 2013 slowed to 0.7 percent following 1.5 percent in 2012.
The smoothed version of the barometer, which attempts to account for weekly volatility, increased by 0.1 percent to 99.8. Its year-over-year growth rate was 1.0 percent.
Posted: July 23, 2015 Thursday 10:00 AM