Research >> Economics
DJ-BTMU U.S. Business Barometer Increased 1.7%
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For the week ending December 17, 2011, the DJ-BTMU U.S. Business Barometer leapt up by +1.7 percent led by a surge in last minute holiday shopping. Inflation-adjusted chain store sales soared by +3.3 percent in the latest week after declining two consecutive weeks. The average weekly increase of chain store sales during the first three weeks of December ended up a modest +0.3 percent. On the production side, the bounce back was even stronger with a sharp gain in lumber production in the latest week. Steel and truck production also showed a healthy increase. Overall, the components of consumption contributed +0.6 percentage points while the production components contributed +1.0 percentage points to the barometer’s growth in the latest week.
On a year-over-year basis, the growth of the barometer increased by +1.5 percent, which compares to an average -3.3 percent decline over the Great Recession (determined to have 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%), but not so impressive when you compare it to an -8.0 percent drop in 2009.
The smoothed version of the barometer, which attempts to account for weekly volatility, increased by +0.2 percent for three consecutive weeks in the week ending December 17th, while its year-over-year growth rate slowed to +1.0 percent.
Posted: December 29, 2011 Thursday 10:00 AM