Economy: Factories, Consumer Confidence Weaken Again

A spate of indicators released Friday show weakness continuing to spread for the U.S. economy, in line with a growing awareness by economists that the slump may not have even hit bottom yet.

And that is bad news for trucking, since trucks haul the goods made by factories and demanded by consumers.

The Federal Reserve said overall industrial output by factories, mines and utilities fell another 0.8% in May, the eighth straight drop and following a 0.6% April decline. The factory component alone fell 0.7%.

On the demand side, the University of Michigan said its consumer sentiment survey eroded to 91.6 this month from May’s 92. Since that can point to how consumers might spend in the future, any weakening of buyers’ attitudes is a warning sign in an already sluggish economy.

The Labor Department said consumer price in inflation rose 0.4% in May, partly on the strength of energy prices that have hit businesses and consumers hard this year and are a special problem for fuel-thirsty truck fleets.

But Labor also said its underlying trend or “core” rate barely edged 0.1% higher, suggesting that basic inflation pressures are still contained. And that gives the Fed room to keep cutting interest rates to fight the economic weakness. Transport Topics