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Pinnacle Finance Blog

March 5, 2019

Economic Update February/March 2019

Continued Strong Job Growth Should Help Drive Home Improvement Industry… In what should be quite beneficial for the home improvement industry job growth in the United States has remained strong. January nonfarm payrolls grew 304,000, higher than the consensus expectation of 165,000, with December adding 222,000. The average monthly gain in 2018 was 223,000. An additional positive is that average hourly earnings for employees increased to 3.2% in January compared to January 2018 reflecting rising pay for employees after many years of stagnant earnings growth. …With Consumer Confidence Bouncing Back… The Conference Board reported that its’ consumer confidence index rose […]

June 4, 2019

Economic Update – May/June 2019

Strong Economic Growth In Q1 But Slowing In Q2…. The most recent estimate for GDP growth in the first quarter of 2019 was quite strong at 3.1%, up from 2.2% in the fourth quarter of 2018. Much of the GDP growth in Q1 was from a buildup of inventories and net export of goods. Many have speculated that the buildup of inventories was related to the prospect of the tariff increases that have made headlines in the past several months. If that was the case then a reduction of inventory should have a negative impact on growth in future quarters. […]