Research >> Economics
BTMU U.S. Business Barometer declined by 1.0%
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For the week ending December 5 2015, the BTMU U.S. Business Barometer fell by 1.0 percent to 97.2. This week’s sharp drop was driven by weak performances in both consumption and production indexes. Chain store sales, for example, plunged by 6.1 percent as a result of the early December-spending lull (because retailers tend to pull forward spending into the Thanksgiving week or earlier). As to the production side, auto and lumber production plummeted by 19.1 and 7.4 percent, respectively, which offset the moderate gains in other indexes.
On a year-over-year basis, the barometer showed a loss of 1.4 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, fell by 0.1 percent to 97.7. Its year-over-year growth rate was -1.5 percent.
Posted: December 17, 2015 Thursday 10:00 AM