Economy

UPDATED -- Shipments and new orders for durable manufactured goods both increased in June following declines the month before, while total U.S. construction in June hit its highest level so far this year.

New home sales dropped in June and the Commerce Department revised the extraordinarily strong May figures downward.

The American Trucking Associations’ advanced seasonally adjusted For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index declined 0.8% in June, following a revised 0.9% gain the previous month.

Consumer prices rose again in June, but the pace was less than it was the month before, according to the U.S. Labor Department.

Truckload linehaul rates paid by North American shippers in June were 5.2% higher than in June of last year, according to the latest Cass Truckload Line Index released Friday.

Housing starts in the U.S. fell 9.3% in June, the second consecutive monthly decline, according to the U.S. Commerce Department, pushing the annual rate down to 893,000, the weakest showing since last September.

Retail sales increased in June, according to a new Commerce Department report, but the gain was far less than analysts were expecting.

The Port of Virginia set a new mark for volume in fiscal 2014, handling more than 2.3 million twenty-foot equivalent units in the twelve months ending June 30, eclipsing the previous fiscal year record by 140,476 TEUs.

FTR’s Trucking Conditions Index in May, at a reading of 5.74, reflects some headwinds affecting truck fleet results, according to this latest report from the transportation forecasting firm.

The amount of freight carried by the for-hire transportation industry rose 0.6 percent in May from April, rising for the fourth consecutive month, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Freight Transportation Services Index released Thursday.

The freight logistics sector continued to strengthen in June, with both shipment volumes and expenditures rising once again, according to the Cass Freight Index.

Employers added 288,000 jobs in June, 17,000 of them in the transportation and warehousing arena, and the unemployment rate fell to 6.1%. That's well above the rate of hiring in the first five months of the year, a sign the economy continues to rebound.

Economic activity in the manufacturing sector expanded in June for the 13th consecutive month, and the overall economy grew for the 61st consecutive month, according to the Institute for Supply Management.