Retail gas deliveries by refiners dropped again in December by 1.8% to 30.4 million gallons per day. Compared to December 2010 deliveries are down 28.3%. In other words, refiners delivered nearly one third less gas at the end of 2011 as 2010. With gas prices rising steeply, but with no obvious signs of shortages, where is the missing third of gasoline coming from?
–From the US Department of Energy
The 10-city home price index dropped 1.1% to 149.89. This is a 3.9% loss from last December and the lowest value since June 2003. The 20-city index also slid 1.1% to 136.71–a 4% drop from last December. The only cities to increase this month were Phoenix and Miami and their gains were meager (.8% and .2%, respectively). The largest one-month drops were in Detroit (down 3.8% to 68.39), Chicago (down 2% to 110.23), and Atlanta (down 1.8% to 87.3). This is the worst month for the home price index since 2009.
For more information, see our home price index report.
-from The St. Louis Federal Reserve and Case-Shiller
Canada’s trade surplus rose $1.5 billion dollars, or 125%, to $2.7 billion between November and December. Given that Canada and China signed a broad trade agreement earlier this week and Canada is in talks working towards a free trade agreement with the EU, it appears this spike is just the beginning of Canada greatly increasing its role as a key-player export nation.
-From Statistics Canada.
The US trade deficit increased $1.7 billion (3.7%) in December to -$48.8 billion. This is surprising, given the details from our major trade partners. Imports from China declined $4 billion (10.8%) to $32.8 billion while exports to China decreased by a much smaller $230 million to $9.7 billion. Imports from Canada increased $284.3 million to $26.5 billion while exports decreased $567.9 million to $22.7 billion. In other words, our biggest trading partners had an enormous decrease combined, yet the deficit still increased. The biggest percent change came from exports to Japan, which droped $655.9 million, or 10.8%, to $5.4 billion.
–From the St. Louis Federal Reserve and the Bureau of Economic Analysis
The Job Opening and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) showed December job openings increased 258,000 to 3.4 million, an increase of 8.3%. Hires decreased 86,000 (2.1%) to 4 million due to November’s decrease in job openings. Total separations decreased 77,000 to 3.9 million. Job openings increased slightly in most fields. The biggest gain was professional and business services gaining 149,000 (29.6%) to 652,000. Finance and Insurance saw the biggest percent change, gaining 36.3% more job openings to 150,000. Education openings decreased 21,000 to 588,00 and construction declined 3,000 to 71,000.
For more information, see our JOLTS report.
-From the St. Louis Federal Reserve and the Bureau of Labor Statistics
Disposable personal income increased $47 billion dollars to $11.6 trillion dollars in December 2011. This increase comes after a $4 billion dollar decrease in November. Disposable income has been above pre-recession levels since February 2011, but was plateauing until this large one-month increase. Real disposable personal income increased $34.2 billion to $10.16 trillion. This is also a substantial increase over November, but just below the recent real high of $10.17 trillion reached in June 2011. Hopefully, this signifies a continued increase after nearly a year of near-flat disposable income increases.
-From the St. Louis Federal Reserve
December housing starts stood at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 657,000. This is a decline of 28,000, or 4%, compared to November 2011, but an increase of 25% compared to December 2010.
Although this month’s figure may initially look troubling, December is consitently a slow month for housing starts. Since 2000, December housing starts increased only three times: in 2002, 2004, and 2006. Excluding those positive three years, December housing starts decline an average of 5% each year with a median of 4%. The highest December decline was 14% in 2008; the lowest 1.2% in 2009. Thus, this December’s decline is below the average since 2000.
-From the St. Louis Federal Reserve
The US unemployment rate dropped .2% in December to 8.5%. Total nonfarm payroll increased 200,000 and both the civilian employment population ratio and the civilian labor force participation rate held steady. Since the percentages held steady, this implies that more people found work this past month. The median duration of unemployment dropped .5 weeks led largely by the decrease of 92,000 people unemployed more than six months. For more information, see our Employment Report.
-From the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the St. Louis Federal Reserve
The economy gained 325,000 jobs in December leading to a total payroll of 109.6 million, according to ADP. Though this is a small gain, this month’s employment figure is up 1.8% from December 2010. February 2009 was the last time employment was this high, indicating that we’re still climbing out of the trough created by the recession. We’re still down 5 million jobs from the pre-recession employment peak reached in January 2008. Stay tuned this week as the BLS releases its employment report on Friday.
–From ADP and the St. Louis Federal Reserve
