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The word from Alan Gin, economist at the University of San Diego, is that the local economy dipped again in July. That’s the 15th monthly decline in 16 months.
But the drop wasn’t nearly as bad as the index’s drop between May and June, which was the largest month-on-month drop in more than a year.
The categories measured in the index that dipped negative: consumer confidence, help-wanted advertising and a rise in initial claims for unemployment insurance. Positive categories included a very slight (0.03 percent) rise in the number of building permits, a rise in local stock prices and a rise in the national economic outlook.
The housing market is the major concern for the local and national economies, Gin wrote.
“It is now likely that the Federal Reserve will follow up its recent cut in the discount rate with further cuts before the end of the year,” he said in the release. “Whether that will be enough to prevent the weak housing market from dragging down the rest of the economy remains to be seen, but the thought here is that it will.”
View the entire index here.