Canada's Ivey Business Survey falls in April, building permits fall. | CountingPips Forex & Currency Trading Blog

May 6, 2008 - Forex Economic News

Canada's Ivey Business Survey falls in April, building permits fall.

The Ivey Purchasing Managers Index for the month of April was released today and showed a decrease from March. The Ivey Index, which surveys monthly changes in purchasing activity of selected business managers, fell in April to a score of 57.6. April's score was down from 59.0 in March and below the score of 60.9 in April of 2007. April's results were above market forecasts that were expecting the Ivey Index score to be 54.0 for April. A score above 50 in the index indicates an increase in activity, a score below 50 indicates a decrease while a score of 50 is considered to mean activity had remained flat. The Ivey employment index for April increased to 54.3 from 53.9 in March. The prices index and inventories index both increased to 80.7 and 50.7, respectively, while the supplier deliveries index decreased to a 42.9 score for the month. The monthly Ivey Purchasing Managers Index is sponsored by the Richard Ivey School of Business and the Purchasing Management Association of Canada.

Canadian building permits fall in February.

Canadian building permits fell in March according to a report by Statistics Canada released today. Building permits, used as a barometer of future construction, fell 4.5 percent in March after a revised increase of 0.8 percent in February. The building permit drop was the fourth out of the last five months and was unexpected as market forecasts were expecting an increase of 1.2 percent. The amount of permits issued by municipalities in March fell to C$5.6 billion from C$5.86 billion in February. Residential permits declined by 5.7 percent while non-residential permits declined by 2.4 percent in March. The largest contributor to the decrease was the province of Alberta which showed a decrease of 32.9 percent in permits for March.

Tags: canada building permits, Ivey Purchasing Managers Index, construction, business survey

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