Full text of U.S. Financial Data : November 15, 2001

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November 15, 2001

USFinancialData
THE WEEK’S HIGHLIGHTS:
■ Initial claims for state unemployment insurance benefits totaled
444,000 in the week ending Nov. 10, the smallest number in eight
weeks. The four-week moving average totaled 474,750, which was
down 31,000 from three weeks earlier.
■ The nominal value of business inventories declined 0.5 percent in
September. During the third quarter, business inventories fell 1.2
percent, the largest decline since the first quarter of 1983: By
category, manufacturing inventories fell 2.3 percent and wholesale
inventories fell 1.3 percent, while retail inventories rose 0.2 percent.
■ Measured in current dollars, the value of retail and food services
sales rose 7.1 percent in October (not annualized), as sales at motor
vehicle and parts dealers surged 26.4 percent. These increases were
the largest one-month gains on record. Excluding motor vehicle
sales, however, total sales rose 1 percent, which was not enough to
offset September’s 1.5 percent drop.
■ In October, the producer price index (PPI) for finished goods fell
1.6 percent, the largest one-month decline on record. Prices paid
by producers for finished energy goods fell 7.7 percent, while the
PPI excluding food and energy prices fell 0.5 percent. After increasing 3.6 percent in 2000, the PPI has declined at a 0.8 percent annual
rate year-to-date.
Because of the Thanksgiving holiday,
United States Financial Data will not be published next week.
All data are seasonally adjusted unless otherwise indicated.
U.S. Financial Data is published weekly by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of
St. Louis. For more information on data, please call (314) 444-8590. To be added to the mailing
list, please call (314) 444-8809.
Information in this publication is also included in the Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) data base
on the internet at www.stls.frb.org/fred.