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Pastimes : Clown-Free Zone... sorry, no clowns allowed -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: stan_hughes who wrote (361892)	3/12/2008 11:07:04 PM
From: ldo79	Respond to of 436259

and a few folks gonna' be available to lend a hand to offload...... More Bad News For Labor Market, Matus Says 6 minutes ago (RTTNews) - We expect initial claims to increase to 355,000 in the week ending 8 March, after unexpectedly falling 24,000 the previous week, says Lehman Brothers analyst Drew Matus in the firm's daily U.S. economic comment. We also expect continuing claims to trend higher, reflecting difficult labor market conditions. Retail sales are likely to remain sluggish in February, reflecting the many strains on consumers. Spending has been, and likely will continue to be, constrained by declining net worth due to falling home prices and financial asset prices, tight credit and rising energy prices. We expect retail sales to be unchanged in February after rising 0.3 percent in January. The bulk of the weakness should be concentrated in auto and housing-related sales. Auto unit sales fell sharply in January and February to an average of 15.3 million from 16.2 million in December. This should translate to roughly a 1 percent drop in retail auto sales in February. After netting out weak autos, sales should actually be up 0.2 percent. We also expect continued weakness in housing-relates sales. We look for another decline in building materials, reflecting the continued pullback in construction. In addition, furniture sales should continue to fall. Elsewhere, we expect flat sales of general merchandise. Based on chain-store sales, department store sales were down, led by apparel, but discount stores sales were up, reflecting bargain-hunting. In addition, sales of food and healthcare are likely to continue to rise at a trend pace. We also expect a 1 percent increase in service station sales given the increase in gasoline prices. On net, core retail sales, which strip out volatile autos, gasoline and building materials, should rise a tepid 0.1 percent. We expect import prices to have risen 0.9 percent in February, or 0.5 percent excluding petroleum. On a 12-month basis, non-petroleum import prices are likely to be up 4.2 percent Â— the fastest pace of increase since July 1995. Elevated import prices, along with surging commodities, are providing unhelpful support to core inflation and offsetting the disinflationary effects of slower growth. The persistence of these supply shocks suggests the slowdown in core inflation is likely to be very gradual. Business inventories should rise by 0.7 percent, based on an already reported increase of 1.3 percent in manufacturing inventories and an expected increase of 0.4 percent in wholesale stocks. Retail inventories Â— the only new piece of information in the report Â— are likely to rise by 0.2 percent. With economic activity rapidly losing momentum in the first quarter, we expect the pace of inventory growth to slow noticeably in the next few months.