Real new home sale prices and existing-home sale prices have been rising very sharply. When that starts to give way and we don't have the equity market picking up where housing left off, that's another reason the economic expansion will be gradual.
This report is certainly consistent with an economy that is trying to make a recovery, but a weak recovery. When you start to back out the volatile components, it's not all that weak. We're picking it up, but these numbers tell us the economy will come back slowly.
Exports increased by such a small amount, it's not enough to tell me the inventory problem is going to go away. We need world economic growth to start picking up.
Even though every investor out there is saying labor costs are picking up, companies have a way to be flexible. In theory, when the economy is doing well, profits do just fine even if labor costs increase.
The unemployment rate is picking up, but it's picking up at a very slow pace,