Archive | April, 2012

Total vehicle sales are expected to increase for the month of April, as Americans look to replace their aging cars and trucks with newer, more fuel-efficient rides. Along with pent-up demand, increased consumer confidence and decreased unemployment, car company incentives will drive the auto industry to its sixth straight month of powerful growth. Economists, surveyed [...]

Overall durable goods orders are expected to show a slight decrease in March confirming a slow economic recovery ever since the beginning of the quarter. Economists are predicting Wednesday’s report to headline a 1.7 percent drop in overall orders. The sharp fall of Boeing orders this past month – from 237 in February to 53 [...]

Home prices are expected to drop at a slower rate for the second month in a row, a sign of a new, if faint, stabilization in the housing market. Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller home-price indices for February will be released tomorrow with an estimated 3.4 percent year-over-year drop average according to 31 economists surveyed by [...]

A surprisingly warm weather, low mortgage rates and an overall positive economic outlook will likely drive the US existing home sales up for March. The existing home sales for February were reported at 4.59 million by the National Association of Realtors (NAR). Economists estimate the sales for March to cross the 4.60 million mark. After [...]

A sharp drop in auto sales will likely drag down the overall increase in retail sales, but other sectors are likely to show strong gains. This March is the warmest on record, and this unseasonably pleasant weather boosted sales in most other categories. People would likely have spent more money on clothes and accessories, at [...]

Best Buy, a consumer electronics retailer, will close 50 stores this year. Sears, best known for selling appliances, tires and tools, also plans to close 173 stores within the first half of this year. Best Buy and Sears are amongst many brick-and-mortar retailers losing business to online shopping websites like Amazon.com. It isn’t just hardware [...]

The global consequences of weak demand in Europe will likely drive up the U.S. trade deficit for February and in the coming months. In January, the trade deficit hit $56.2 billion, its widest point since 2008, the year before the recession. So far, modest export growth has helped offset strong imports. Yet economists are forecasting [...]

The economy seems to be losing momentum as job growth slows dramatically at the end of the first quarter. The addition of 120,000 private sector jobs are only half of the 240,000 jobs added in February, a disappointment after three consecutive months of positive gains over 200,000. And while the unemployment rate dipped slightly by [...]

Smaller, fuel-efficient cars powered total vehicle sales in March, bolstering the resurgent American economy and accelerating the auto industry. Chrysler sold more than 163,000 vehicles last month, leading the pack with a 34 percent increase compared to March 2011. The automaker, controlled by Fiat SpA, was the only member of the “Big Three” to exceed [...]