Retail Sales

April 16, 2025             Retail sales rose  1.4% in March after climbing 0.2% in February after having fallen 1.0% in January.   In the past year retail sales have risen 4.4%  The wildfires in California that raged from January 7...

Producer Price Index

April 11, 2025 The Producer Price Index for final demand  includes producer prices for goods, as well as prices for construction, services, government purchases, and exports and covers over 75% of domestic production. Producer prices for final demand declined 0.4% in...

Corporate Profits

March 27, 2025 Corporate profits from current production (corporate profits before tax with inventory valuation and capital consumption adjustments) rose by $204.7 billion in the fourth quarter which works out to an an increase of 5.4% after after having fallen 0.4%...

Fed Funds Rate

May 10, 2024 . The federal funds rate is the overnight rate that banks charge each other to borrow/lend  reserves.  Some banks have more reserves than they need.  Others (principally large banks) are short of reserves and must borrow from other banks in the system,...

Consumer Net Worth

April 4, 2024 .Consumer net worth jumped 12.8% in the fourth quarter of last year. after declining 3.7% in the third quarter  Over the past year consumer net worth has increased 8.0%. The growth in net worth reflects both the steady increase in stock prices during the...

Consumer Debt Service Ratio

April 4, 2024 Consumers debt service payments relative to income rose somewhat in the fourth quarter to 9.8%,  .Consumer debt in relation to income is slightly higher than it was a couple of quarters ago as the result of a rapid increase in credit card debt.  But the...