Research >> Economics
BTMU U.S. Business Barometer declined by 0.5%
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For the week ending October 10 2015, the BTMU U.S. Business Barometer declined by 0.5 percent to 97.8. This week’s barometer was driven by weak performance in MBA’s purchase index, which dropped sharply by 34.1 percent, following a significant gain of 27.4 percent in the prior week ( The plummet was caused by the implementation of the new TILA-RESPA intergrated disclosures, a new rule for the mortgage applications process). As to the production side, auto and steel production increased by 6.0 and 0.2 percent, respectively; but these gains were completely offset by losses in other production indexes.
On a year-over-year basis, the barometer showed a loss of 0.5 percent, which compares to an average -3.3 percent decline over the Great Recession (ended in June 2009 according to the NBER). After flat lining in 2006, and declining from 2007 through 2009, the barometer bounced back in 2010 to rise by 3.4 percent, which was the strongest increase since 1994 (+4.0 percent), but not so impressive when compared to an -8.0 percent drop in 2009. The rate of increase for the 2013 slowed to 0.7 percent following 1.5 percent in 2012.
The smoothed version of the barometer, which attempts to account for weekly volatility, declined by 0.1 percent to 98.0. Its year-over-year growth rate was 0.2 percent.
Posted: October 22, 2015 Thursday 10:00 AM