News in end use

Statistics Canada (StatsCan) reported today (3/5/21) that Canada posted a trade surplus of $1.4 billion in January 2021 — the first trade surplus since May 2019 and the largest since July 2014.

Employment in the construction sector fell by 61,000 — a reflection of the declines in nonresidential specialty trade contractors (-37,000) and heavy and civil engineering construction (-21,000).

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) has announced that multifamily property owners who are continuing to struggle to make their mortgage payments due to the coronavirus pandemic have a reprieve through the end of June for mortgages backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is reporting that total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 379,000 in February but is down by 9.5 million, or 6.2%, from its pre-pandemic level in February 2020.

Freddie Mac has released its Primary Mortgage Market Survey (PMMS) for the week ending March 4, 2021. The PMMS reports that 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 3.02% with an average 0.6 point, up from last week when it averaged 2.97%.

The U.S. Department of Labor is reporting that an additional 745,000 Americans made their initial filing for unemployment benefits during the week ending on Saturday, February 27, 2021 — an increase of 9,000 from the previous week’s revised level.

Statistics Canada (StatsCan) is reporting that in January 2021, there was a record high total value of building permits issued, increasing 8.2% to $9.9 billion and exceeding the previous record of $9.6 billion set in April 2019.

According to the latest released report by Challenger, Gray & Christmas (CG&C), Inc, a global outplacement and business and executive coaching firm, planned job cuts announced by U.S. based companies fell -57% to 34,531 in February from 79,552 in January.

According to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Application Survey for the week ending February 26, 2021, the Market Composite Index — a measure of mortgage loan application volume — increased 0.5% on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier.

Smith Leonard’s latest Monthly Furniture Insight survey of residential furniture manufacturers and distributors reported that December sales were 27% higher year-over-year. The 27% increase was higher than November’s 17% increase, which had been the first month in the past 6 months that orders had slowed somewhat.