Research >> Economics
BTMU U.S. Business Barometer increased by 0.2%
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For the week ending June 13 2015, the BTMU U.S. Business Barometer increased by 0.2 percent to 98.6, following a decline of 0.3 percent in the previous week. This week’s barometer was mainly driven by strong performance in most production indexes. The largest contribution to this week’s recovery came from electric output, which rose by 10.1 percent. For the others, truck production went up by 4.5 percent, while auto production went down by 5.9 percent. Also steel production increased by 1.0 percent. As to the consumption side, chain store sales recovered by 0.3 percent, but MBA’s purchase index fell by 4.2 percent.
On a year-over-year basis, the barometer showed a gain of 0.7 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, remained at 98.5. Its year-over-year growth rate was 0.4 percent.
Posted: June 25, 2015 Thursday 10:00 AM