OCR Text |
Show Business Activity About Stationery j Preliminary data indicate that business activity in the twelfth federal reserve district was about the same during April as in the first three months cf 'this year Taking March and April together retail trade was slightly less ac-1 tive than in the two preceding months, after allowance for seasonal sea-sonal influences. Residential building build-ing permits increased by the usual large seasonal amount in March and a further expansion in April is indicated by preliminary data although little or no change is customary in that month. Industrial Indus-trial production figures for April are not yet available, but about the usual seasonal increase took' place during March. Output, ot most California industries for which measures are available re-j mained close to the January and February levels or receded slightly, slight-ly, and industrial employment and pay rolls were somewhat lower than in February after allowance for the customary spas-ona,'! changes. In the Pacific northwest production, employment, and payrolls pay-rolls increased slightly during March, owing largely to a greatei than seasonal expansicn in Jumtiei production. From January through mid-April, mid-April, the usual large seasonal gain in value of residential building build-ing permits issued has taken in the principal district cities. Residential Resi-dential building is currently loss active than a year ago, but many builders have increased their opera' ions sharply from the low-levels low-levels reached last fall, and some are setting programs for the next few months that will maintain main-tain activity at a higher level this year than last. In general, active builders are proceeding more cau.iously with their programs than in early 1937 and the current level of operations is well gaugea to actual market demand. Expansion Expan-sion in residential building since the end of last year has been largely in single family dwellings selling from $3,000 to $6,000. The opinion is now widely held in the tirade, particularly in California, that new houses in this price range, which meet federal housing hous-ing administration standards, can be sold in fairly larg-e, numbers (Continued on last page) Business Activity (Continued from first page) Demands for higher priced houses however, is slack at the present time. Non-residential private building build-ing undertaken in recent months has declined materially, although actual construction and equipment insialation on uncompleted projects pro-jects initiated last year continue Ito provide a fair volume of work With plants operating considerably consider-ably bedow capacity there is no immediate urge to expansion, and little or no economy is apparent in increasing facilities at this time to take care of fulture requirements require-ments because costs of construction construc-tion have noltl been rteduced appreciably ap-preciably from the ' high levelr reached a year ago. ' , 1 Action taken by the board oi governors of the federal reserve sysltem to reduce 'member Ibank reserve requinefments, eflftectrvje April 16, increased excess reserves of twelfth district member banks by $63,000,000. To a considerable exjtent these funds .were promptly invested by the banks in government govern-ment securities. In the two weeks ending April 27, investments ot weekly reporting member banks in Obligations of the United States increased $48,000,000. |