The folks at the Commerce Department and the Labor Department must have heard me complaining. Today they released the reports on business sales and inventories, real earnings, and jobless claims that were due out last week. They also released the international trade report that was due yesterday and the jobless claims report for this week. To top it all off, the University of Michigan reported [two days early] the final value for its consumer sentiment index for November.

So here goes... starting with last week and working forward:

Sales and shipments by manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers grew by 0.4% during September. For the year to date the annualized sales growth was 3.73%. This is a little better than last month's year-to-date figure of 3.31%; but, still well below last year's 7.87% growth rate. With the exception of the 1990-91 recession period, this is the slowest growth rate in the past 9 years.

Inventories on the shelves of manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers grew by 0.3% during September. For 1995, the annualized rate of growth during the first nine months was 7.99%. This is higher than the cyclical high of 7.81% in 1988 and lower than 1984's peak of 9.27%.

Average weekly earnings rose by 2.4% between October 1994 and October 1995 as a result of a 3.0% increase in average hourly earnings which was partially offset by a 0.6% decline in average weekly hours. But, after adjustment for a 2.7% increase in the cost of living over the same period, real average weekly earnings fell by 0.3%.

There were 371,000 new claims for unemployment insurance last week and 370,000 for the week before that. The figure for two weeks ago was revised upward from 375,000 to 381,000. All of these numbers are higher than any readings since July.

During September U.S. imports exceeded exports by $8.3 billion. This was very nearly equal to the foreign trade deficit of August. Based on year-to-date results, the 1995 deficit will be $120.0 billion -- the highest deficit since 1987.

Today the University of Michigan released the final number for its Consumer Sentiment Index for November. Today's index value of 88.2 was 2.5 lower than the preliminary value of 90.7 announced on November 10. This is the lowest value for the index since March.

So, let's total the score: sales are slow, inventories are up, real weekly earnings are negative, unemployment is up, and the trade balance is heading toward the largest deficit since 1987. The score: Slowdown 5, Expansion 0. It's no wonder that those U of M consumers are more pessimistic than they've been in 8 months.

At least we can be thankful that there will be no economic news coming out tomorrow.

Byline: Lafferty (MF Merlin)