Market Insights

The U.S. Census Bureau announced that advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for February were $387.1 billion on a seasonally adjusted basis. That's up 1.0% from $383.4 billion in the previous month, and up 8.2% from $355.6 billion in the same month last year.

Total sales for the December 2010 through February 2011 period were up 8.2% from the same period a year ago.

Sales of new single-family houses in January 2011 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 284,000, according to estimates released jointly Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The pace is 12.6% below the revised December rate of 325,000. January sales were 18.6% below the January 2010 estimate of 349,000.

The unemployment rate fell by 0.4 percentage points to 9.4% in December, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The government also reported non-farm payroll employment increased by 103,000. Employment rose in leisure and hospitality and in health care, but was little changed in other major industries, according to the Friday morning release. The retail trade showed a gain of 12,000 jobs in December, and it has risen by 495,000 since a recent low in September 2009.

Pending home sales are down in January for the second straight month, and are down 1.5% compared with the January 2010 figure, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR).

The Pending Home Sales Index, a forward-looking indicator, declined 2.8% to 88.9 based on contracts signed in January from a downwardly revised 91.5 in December. The index is 1.5% below the 90.3 level in January 2010 when a tax credit stimulus was in place. The data reflects contracts and not closings, which normally occur with a lag time of one or two months.

The Census Bureau's Monthly Retail Trade Report  showed sales for hardware stores -- NAICS code 44413 -- were $1.212 billion on an unadjusted basis in February, the most recent month of available data in this business classification. The February figure is down 6.6% from January's unadjusted sales of $1.298 billion.

In February 2010, unadjusted hardware store sales as calculated by the Census Bureau were $1.235 billion.  

RISI, a leading provider of information about the forest products industry, has announced the appointment of Wade Camp as senior wood products economist. Camp comes to RISI from the Southeastern Lumber Manufacturers Association, where he held the title of director of economic services. 

Camp's career spans three decades and multiple roles from production to economic modeling, working for companies and associations such as International Paper, Georgia-Pacific and the Southern Forest Products Association. 

The 2010 Housewares report, released by The NPD Group, called last year a “challenging” one for sellers of crystalware and fine china, which is defined as bone china or porcelain with a metal band accent.

According to an article in the New York Times, the housing crash is hitting cities once thought to be stable. Case in point: Seattle.

Home prices in Seattle last year had a bigger decline than home prices in Las Vegas, the article reports.