Weekly Market Insights

Consumer Confidence

After sinking into the danger zone during July and August, the economy’s vital signs have improved over the past three months. Consumer confidence in November moved out of the recessionary range to its highest level since June according to the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Surve ... Read More

Commercial Real Estate Vacancy Rates

All sectors of the property leasing market are recovering, some more quickly than others. Third quarter vacancy rates fell by 30 basis points for the office and apartment sectors and by 10 bps for the industrial and retail sectors. The apartment market has been recovering rapidly since mid-2010 t ... Read More

Total Consumer Credit

After rising for 10 consecutive months, consumers took a breather in August as the amount of credit outstanding dipped by $9.5 billion or 0.4 percent, ending the month at $2.44 trillion. Consumer credit has two main components: nonrevolving credit, which includes loans for automobiles, mobile hom ... Read More

Personal Income & Personal Consumption Expenditure

Personal income has trended lower in recent months, which has kept a lid on spending according to a report released last week by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. Personal income fell 0.1 percent in August compared with July. Wage income, an important component of personal income, fell 0.2 pe ... Read More

Consumer Confidence

Under normal circumstances, consumer confidence surveys are not very informative. They do not correlate well with consumer spending because consumers respond to what is going on rather than driving it. But in the “new normal,” consumer and business confidence appears to be playing an  ... Read More

Weekly Market Insight | Retail Sales

Retail sales were flat in August compared with July according to the Census Bureau even though many individual retailers had previously reported decent back-to-school sales numbers. Core retail sales, which exclude autos and gas, rose 0.1 percent. Hurricane Irene may have played a role, boosting  ... Read More

10-year Treasury Yield, 2011

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note ended Friday at 1.93 percent, the lowest level since at least 1962 when the Treasury Department began publishing daily rates. The decline of approximately 150 basis points so far this year has been driven by fear that policymakers in Europe and the U.S. are  ... Read More

ISM Non-Manufacturing Index

The service sector continued to expand last month according to the Institute for Supply Management’s non-manufacturing index, which, at 53.3, remained above the break-even level of 50. The most forward-looking component of the index, new orders, was 52.8, a sign that production activity is  ... Read More

C&I Loans For Large & Medium Borrowers

Bank credit conditions loosened moderately between April and July according to the Federal Reserve’s quarterly Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices. Of the domestic banks responding to the survey, 21.8 percent loosened standards for commercial and industrial loans to ... Read More

10-year Treasury Yield

The historic events of the past week are best viewed as an aftershock -- the most serious one yet -- of the 2008-09 financial crisis. There is no shortage of economic variables that describe what is happening now, but arguably none are more encompassing than the yield on the 10-Year Treasury note ... Read More

ISM Manufacturing Index

The manufacturing sector skidded last month to its slowest pace in two years. The Institute for Supply Management’s purchasing managers index fell from 55.3 in June to 50.9 in July, barely above the threshold level of 50 that indicates expansion. More worrisome, new orders, a forward-lookin ... Read More

Commercial Real Estate Vacancy Rates

Leasing activity was solid across all property types in the second quarter, which is surprising because the economy lost momentum during this period. Perhaps the biggest surprise was the office market, where demand is relatively more dependent than other property sectors on job creation. Office v ... Read More

Total Consumer Credit

Total consumer credit bottomed out in September 2010 at $2.395 trillion and has risen gradually every month since then to $2.432 trillion in May 2011. Consumer credit has two main components. The largest component is nonrevolving credit, which includes loans for automobiles, mobile homes, educati ... Read More

Real Annual Gross Domestic Product

The Federal Reserve released its quarterly summary of economic projections last week, reducing its forecast of GDP and raising its forecast of the unemployment rate in 2011 and 2012. In doing so, the Fed acknowledged what many private economists have been saying for several months – that th ... Read More

ISM Indexes; Values > 50 = Expansion

The Institute for Supply Management maintains two indexes, one for the manufacturing sector and a non-manufacturing index that measures service industries. Based on surveys of purchasing managers, these indexes are early indicators of inflection points in the economy. Both indexes confirm the rec ... Read More

Real Disposable Personal Income & Personal Consump

Real Disposable Personal Income & Personal Consumption Expenditures; Monthly Percent Change, Seasonally Adjusted . 5/30/11

Personal income and consumer spending growth were weak in April, underscoring a big reason for the economy's recent soft patch. Real disposable personal income (i ... Read More

CRE Net Sales by Investor Type 2010-Q2 to 2011-Q1

Publicly traded REITs have bulked up over the past four quarters. They have acquired commercial properties valued at $22.5 billion, more than doubling dispositions totaling $10.8 billion, for a net positive inflow of $11.7 billion. This is in line with predictions made early in the financial cris ... Read More

Supply & Demand for Commercial Loans

Banks are slowly ramping up their commercial real estate lending according to the Federal Reserve’s quarterly Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices. In the recently released April survey, 5.5 percent of respondents said their banks eased standards for CRE loans in the ... Read More

Interest Rates

Long-term interest rates have been moving lower, surprising analysts who expected interest rates and inflation to rise as the economy gains momentum. Falling interest rates also are surprising many who thought the pending conclusion of the Federal Reserve's $600 billion bond-buying program called ... Read More

Avg Price per Gallon of Gasoline

Gasoline prices continued to march higher last week, averaging $3.684 per gallon of regular. Demand from emerging markets such as China, India and Brazil combined with geopolitical instability in the Middle East are elevating prices. With the summer travel season approaching, analysts expect pric ... Read More

Consumer Price Index - % Change M/M

The core consumer price index, which excludes food and energy, increased 0.1 percent in November following three consecutive months at zero. The cost of rental housing helped drive the increase as the rent index rose 0.2 per ... Read More

Cash & Liquid Assets

Cash and other liquid assets on the balance sheets of nonfinancial businesses totaled a record $1.93 trillion at the end of the third quarter. This equated to 7.4 percent of their total assets, the highest share since 1959. Companies are stoc ... Read More

Monthly Payroll Job Change; Seasonally Adjusted

The Labor Department’s Employment Situation report for November, released on Friday, is reminiscent of the reports in May and June. The net gain of 39,000 payroll jobs last month – 50,000 private sector jobs adde ... Read More

10-Year Treasury Rate - Will QE2 Work?

The Federal Reserve’s program to purchase $600 billion of government securities – a strategy called quantitative easing – has been subjected to an unprecedented level of criticism from some politicians and  ... Read More

Cost of Thanksgiving Dinner Ingredients

Rising commodity prices due to demand from China and other emerging markets have yet to impact the cost of Thanksgiving dinner. The American Farm Bureau reports that the average cost of the ingredients for a turkey dinner with all the trimmin ... Read More

10-Year Treasury Rate

Interest rates paid by Treasury securities increased across the board on Monday as the Federal Reserve’s program to purchase $600 billion of government debt, dubbed QE2 (the second round of quantitative easing), kicked ... Read More

Supply & Demand for Commercial RE Loans

The tightening cycle for commercial real estate debt has just about run its course according to the Federal Reserve’s quarterly Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices. In the just-released October ... Read More

Contributions to % Change in GDP

The economy grew at an annualized rate of 2.0 percent in the third quarter, up slightly from 1.7 percent in the second quarter according to the advance estimate from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Consumer spending picked  ... Read More

Consumer Price Index

Inflation continues to languish. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported la ... Read More

U.S. Office Market First Look: 2010-Q3

·&nbs ... Read More

10-Year Treasury Rate

The 10-year Treasury yield ended Monday at 2.50 percent, near its low for the year despite impressive stock market gains during September and a recent stream of economic data suggesting the economy will avoid a double-dip recession. Strong de ... Read More

Average Lease Term

The average term of office leases signed so far this year is 56.2 months, a slight increase from the 2009 average of 55.5 months. The average industrial lease term has continued sinking this year to a decade-low of 44.7 mont ... Read More

Length of Post-War Recessions & Employment Troughs

The National Bureau of Economic Research – the private, nonprofit org ... Read More

U.S. Exports & Imports

The dollar value of U.S. exports rose to $153.3 billion in July, a monthly increase of 1.8 percent which more than erased the prior month’s decline of 1.3 percent. Imports dropped by 2.1 percent to $196.1 billion. T ... Read More

Unemployment Rate by Education Level

The Great Recession and subsequent disappointing recovery have been much harder on less-educated workers. The unemployment rate in August was 9.6 percent overall, but this masked large differences based on levels of educa ... Read More

Monthly Single-Family Home Sales

The big news last week was that home sales plunged more than expected in Ju ... Read More

Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending

Supply and demand conditions for commercial real estate debt are moving back toward equilibrium according to the Federal Reserve’s quarterly Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices. In the July sur ... Read More

Total Consumer Credit

Since peaking at nearly $2.6 trillion in July 2008, consumer credit outstanding has fallen in 20 of the past 23 months by a total of 6.3 percent. Included in this category are revolving credit Read More

Temporary Help Services, Monthly Change

The loss of 5,600 temporary jobs in July was a troubling detail in the disa ... Read More

Gross Domestic Product

Second quarter GDP grew at an annualized rate of 2.4 percent, down from an  ... Read More

Moody's/REAL CPPI

Commercial property prices continue to firm according to the Moody’s/ ... Read More

Retail Sales Monthly % Change

Monthly retail sales were lackluster in June, down 0.5 percent, while April and May data were revised lower. Core sales, which exclude autos and gasoline, increased 0.1 percent, however. Sales at auto dealers and gas station ... Read More

Average Lease Size

The average size of office and industrial leases signed in the first half o ... Read More

Job Growth After Most Recent Recessions

The number of payroll jobs bottomed out in December 2009, but the recession most likely ended a few months before that since GDP turned positive in the third quarter of last year. The National Bureau of Economic Research, the committee of academics responsible for setting business cycle dates, ha ... Read More

Monthly Home Sales In Millions

Sales of new and existing homes fell in May as the homebuyers’ tax credit expired at the end of April. New home sales came in at a startlingly low annualized rate of 300,000 ... Read More