Research >> Economics
BTMU U.S. Business Barometer increased by 0.2%
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For the week ending July 18 2015, the BTMU U.S. Business Barometer increased by 0.2 percent to 99.5, following a drop of 1.4 percent in the previous week. This week’s barometer was mainly driven by strong performances in consumption indexes, especially chain store sales, which rose by 0.4 percent, and MBA’s purchase index, which picked up by 1.0 percent. As to the production side, truck production and lumber production increased by 3.3 and 0.5 percent, respectively, but auto production dropped by 20.0 percent.
On a year-over-year basis, the barometer showed a gain of 1.0 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, decreased by 0.1 percent to 99.6. Its year-over-year growth rate was 0.9 percent.
Posted: July 30, 2015 Thursday 10:00 AM