ShareEach day the Research staff takes a look at recently released economic indicators, addressing what these indicators mean for REALTORS® and their clients. Today’s update highlights retail sales as well as import and export prices.
Retail Sales:
- Positive news, retail sales in September rose 1.1 percent, following a revised 0.3 percent increase. Retail sales were higher than predicted by economists.
- Gas sales contributed to the rise in the core with a 1.2 percent increase. Sales for September excluding autos and gas were up 0.5 percent, after a 0.5 percent increase in August.
- Today’s retail sales numbers are one sign that the economy will avoid recession and is gradually and slowly improving.
Import/Export Prices:
- Petroleum import prices rose 0.3 percent in September reversing a revised 0.2 percent decline in August.
- Import prices had 7 months of year-over-year changes of more than 10 percent—in September the year-over-year change was 13.4 percent. Stubbornly high import prices will keep the broader consumer price index at above 3 percent and possible even reach 4 percent by the year end. Social security checks will likely get a 3.5 percent cost-of-living-adjustment boost in 2012. But unfortunately workers’ wage has been keeping up with inflation, rising at less than 2 percent in the past year.
- Export prices increased 0.4 percent reflecting pressure from agricultural products—export prices jumped 1.6 percent following August's 2.1 percent increase.
- Year-over-year, export prices increased 9.5 percent. A 22 percent jump in agricultural products should help push up land prices in the farm states.
Weekly Forecast
At a glance, this table shows the forecast for some of the most pertinent weekly data for REALTORS® to keep in mind. This changes from week to week as new data becomes available. For the full forecast from the latest Pending Home Sales release, click here (PDF).
