April 3 (Bloomberg) -- Service industries in the U.S. contracted for a third month in March and claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly jumped last week, reinforcing speculation the economy is shrinking.
The Institute for Supply Management's non-manufacturing index was 49.6 in March, higher than economists had forecast, up from 49.3 in February. A reading of 50 is the dividing line between growth and contraction. The Labor Department said the number of Americans filing first-time unemployment benefit claims rose to 407,000 last week, the most since September 2005.
``All of this is reflective of an economy that has essentially stalled,'' said David Resler, chief economist at Nomura Securities International Inc. in New York, who forecast an ISM reading of 49. ``A lot more companies are in a hiring freeze. The service sector is basically dead in the water.''
Treasuries climbed as investors bet that the Federal Reserve will keep lowering interest rates to restore growth later in the year, and stocks declined. Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke yesterday acknowledged for the first time that a recession is possible this year as homebuilding declines and spending slows.
Economists forecast the ISM index would fall to 48.5, according to the median of 69 projections in a Bloomberg News survey. Estimates ranged from 46 to 52.5. The measure reached a record low of 44.6 in January.
The last time the ISM services index was less than 50 for at least three consecutive months was in 2001-2002 as the economy was emerging from a recession.
Stocks Drop
The Standard & Poor's 500 index was down 0.3 percent at 1,363.5 at 11:12 a.m. in New York. The yield on the benchmark 10-year note fell to 3.56 percent from 3.60 percent late yesterday.
Initial jobless claims climbed by 38,000 in the week that ended March 29, the Labor Department said in Washington. The number of people remaining on benefit rolls jumped by 97,000 to 2.937 million, the highest level since July 2004, in the week ended March 22, Labor said.
Last week's initial claims may have been pushed higher as some state unemployment offices processed a backlog from the previous week, which included the Good Friday holiday, a Labor Department spokesman said.
The ISM report showed an employment gauge was unchanged at 46.9 for a second month in March. The index for non- manufacturing businesses activity rose to 52.2 from 50.8 the prior month. Measures of new orders and prices also increased.
Manufacturing Contracts
Manufacturing in the U.S. contracted less than forecast in March, as gains in exports helped offset declines in orders, the purchasers' group said earlier this week. Its factory index increased to 48.6 from 48.3 in February.
``The economy is weak, but not gaining momentum to the downside,'' Alan Levenson, chief economist at T. Rowe Price Group Inc. in Baltimore, said in an interview with Bloomberg Radio. The weakness ``is mostly closely related to the housing sector.''
The U.S. economy has slowed to a ``virtual standstill,'' hurting global growth prospects, and financial market strains are the biggest threat to the outlook, the International Monetary Fund's chief economist Simon Johnson said in a statement released today in Washington.
Johnson said market conditions, higher energy prices, ``softer'' labor markets, and a weak housing market ``conspire to weigh heavily on the economy in the near term.''
Payroll Forecast
A report from Labor tomorrow is projected to show the U.S. lost jobs for a third straight month in March and the unemployment rate rose to 5 percent from 4.8 percent, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg News.
A cooling job market, tight credit conditions and the deepening slump in housing have shaken consumer confidence and hurt spending. Retail sales fell 0.6 percent in February, according to figures from the Commerce Department.
The slowdown continued in March. The International Council of Shopping Centers and UBS Securities LLC on April 1 lowered March chain-store sales estimates for a second time in as many weeks as purchases of clothing waned.
Sales at stores open at least a year will probably fall or be little changed for the month, the group said, after rising just 0.5 percent last week from a year earlier. The increase was the smallest since April 2003.
Automakers sold cars and light trucks at an average 15.2 million annual pace from January through March, the weakest three months in almost a decade.
Worse to Come
``I'd like to be able to tell you the worst is behind us, but I can't really say that,'' Ford Motor Co. marketing chief Jim Farley said on a conference call this week. ``Our sense is the second quarter may be the worst sales period of the year.''
Bernanke, testifying before the Joint Economic Committee of Congress yesterday, said ``it now appears likely that real gross domestic product will not grow much, if at all, over the first half of 2008 and could even contract slightly.''
Slowdowns in spending and business investment indicate the economy grew at a 0.1 percent pace in the first three months of the year, following a 0.6 percent rate of expansion in the fourth quarter, according to last month's Bloomberg survey.
Economists at Merrill Lynch & Co., Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and UBS Securities LLC are among those saying the economy is already in a recession.
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