News

Building permits declined 3.7% in August and 11.1% over the year. Permits for single-family homes in August decreased 2.2% from July and 11.5% over the year. Meanwhile, permits for buildings with five or more units dropped 6.7% from July and 10.8% over the year. In August, housing starts declined 8.5% from July and 6% from…

The Federal Open Market Committee lowered its interest rate target range by 25 basis points to 4.00%–4.25% at its September meeting. In a change to its previous statement, the FOMC noted that job gains have slowed, and the unemployment rate has edged up. At the same time, inflation has moved up. Nonetheless, the committee judged…

U.S. import prices rose 0.3% in August, after advancing 0.2% in July, with higher nonfuel import prices driving the increase. Over the past year, import prices stayed the same. Meanwhile, U.S. export prices stepped up 0.3% in August, with nonagricultural export prices driving the increase. Over the past year, export prices climbed 3.4%, the largest…

Manufacturing activity in New York state declined in September for the first time since June, with the headline general business conditions index falling nearly 21 points to -8.7. The new orders index plummeted 35 points to -19.6, while the shipments index dropped nearly 30 points to -17.3, the lowest levels for both indexes since April…

In September, Philadelphia’s regional manufacturing activity expanded notably following weakness in August. Rising from -0.3 to 23.2, the index for current general business activity recorded its highest reading since January. Just 16.7% of firms reported decreases in activity this month, while 39.9% noted increases. The indexes for new orders and shipments both improved, rising from…

Industrial production ticked up 0.1% in August, while manufacturing output increased 0.2% after edging down 0.1% in July. At 100.3% of its 2017 average, manufacturing production in August rose just 0.9% from the same month last year. Capacity utilization for manufacturing inched up to 76.8%, up 0.1 percentage point from July and advanced 1.2% over…