There were a couple of dark spots in for our economy in reports released yesterday. First of all, manufacturing, which had looked strong in recent months, stumbled a bit in March. Production at U.S. factories dropped by 0.2 percent in March, the first time in four months that it's fallen. It might be more proper to look at that small decrease as a plateau: It followed three months in which manufacturing productivity grew by 3.4 percent. That represents the biggest three-month gain for manufacturing since 1984.
Also in March, the number of new homes being started dropped suddenly. New homes had been started at an annual rate of 694,000 in February, but they dropped to a rate of 654,000 in March, a decrease of 5.8 percent. That's the lowest that number has been since October.
At the same time, though, the number of new building permits rose 4.5 percent in March, to an annual rate 0f 747,000. So there's a possibility that the drop in housing starts, as well as the drop in manufacturing, might just be a blip.
No comments:
Post a Comment