August Economic Indicators

The Lehmann Letter (SM)

The blogger is on vacation, returning to the office on August 15.

But he’s not too far away to escape the news. Now that the debt increase has been resolved for the moment, some are making dire forecasts that reflect their view of the settlement.

As this letter has observed throughout the year, the economy is in a fragile state. It is hard to imagine that – under the current political circumstances – we could have reasonably expected an outcome sufficiently expansionary to overcome the economy’s inherent weakness. Growth will be weak until household balance sheets are repaired. That will take a while.

Here are August’s economic indicators.

ECONOMIC INDICATOR PUBLICATION SCHEDULE

August 2011

Source (* below)……Series Description……Day & Date

Quarterly Data

BLS……………Productivity …..……Tue, 9th

BEA…………………….GDP …..……Fri, 26th

Monthly Data

ISM..Purchasing managers’ index…Mon, 1st

BEA.New-vehicle sales.(Approximate).Wed, 3rd

BLS………….Employment………… Fri, 5th
Fed Consumer credit..(Approximate).Fri, 5th
Census…….......Inventories…….... Fri, 12th
Fed……….Capacity utilization……Tue, 16th
Census……...Housing starts…….Tue, 16th
BLS………...Producer prices……. Wed, 17th
BLS………….Consumer prices.….. Thu, 18th
NAR………Existing-home sales….Thu, 18th
Conf Bd…….Leading indicators….Thu, 18th

Census……..New-home sales…...Tue, 23rd
Census……….Capital goods…….. Wed, 24th

Conf Bd….Consumer confidence.. Tue, 30th

*BEA = Bureau of Economic Analysis of the U.S. Department of Commerce
*BLS = Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor
*Census = U.S. Bureau of the Census
*Conf Bd = Conference Board
*Fed = Federal Reserve System
*ISM = Institute for Supply Management
*NAR = National Association of Realtors

© 2011 Michael B. Lehman