Economic Reports 05/01/09

S&P Case Shiller Housing Price Index March

10 city index -2.1% 151.41 vs 154.7; 20 city index -2.2% 139.99 vs 143.2. Rates of decline in hard-hit areas are deepening, not improving.

Phoenix, Las Vegas, San Francisco and Miami are posting mid-single digit monthly declines with year-on-year declines roughly 30%.

As much as the NAR wants to cheer… there's "no evidence" that home-price recovery is here.

Existing Home Sales April

Firesales gained +2.9% at 4.68M; Yoy -3.5%. Prices held steady, up 0.2 percent to a median $170,200 for still very deep year-on-year contraction of 15.4%.

Supply on the market is a negative in the report, rising to 10.2 months at the current sales rate vs. 9.6 months in March.

New Home Sales April

Slight decline from 356K to 352K. Good news? Supply, down 4.2% to 297K units for the lowest level in eight years, is now at 10.1 months.

Median price + 3.7% in the month to $209,700, though the year-on-year rate is not showing any improvement at all, at -14.9%.

Durable Goods April


+1.9%; ex transport +0.8%; however, companies cutback further on capital spending as new orders for non defense capital goods fell 2%.

Year-on-year, overall new orders for durable goods - 24.4%; Excluding transportation, new durables orders slipped to down -23.3%.

Nondefense capital goods orders are down -32.8%

Chicago PMI May

34.9 vs 40.1 New orders, always the key index, fell nearly 5 points to 37.3. Backlog orders fell nearly 11 points to a very depressed 26.3.

Businesses, facing declining orders, continue to draw down inventories as much as possible with the index at 31.5.

Job cuts are deeper than ever with the employment index down nearly 7 points to 25.0.

Despite increases in energy and commodity prices, purchasers continue to report significant month-to-month declines in input prices with the index at 29.8.

Corporate Profits Q109

Annualized -22% vs -36.3%; Profits are after tax but without inventory valuation and capital consumption adjustments.

GDP Q109

-5.7% vs -6.1%; GDP price index +2.8% vs +2.9%; The upward revision was primarily due to less negative inventories and a smaller decline in exports.

Partially offsetting was a lower increase for personal consumption.

The situation worsens as year-on-year growth for real GDP dropped by 2.5%, after falling 0.8% in Q408.

Initial Jobless Claims 05/23

-13K at 623K; 4 week MA -3K at 626.75K; continuing claims up for the 19th straight week +110K to a record 6.678M; 4 week MA +123.75K at 6.608M

Vs mid April continuing claims +495K, a comparison that points to more trouble in this months non farms job report.

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