Haver Analytics
Haver Analytics

Introducing

Robert Brusca

Robert A. Brusca is Chief Economist of Fact and Opinion Economics, a consulting firm he founded in Manhattan. He has been an economist on Wall Street for over 25 years. He has visited central banking and large institutional clients in over 30 countries in his career as an economist. Mr. Brusca was a Divisional Research Chief at the Federal Reserve Bank of NY (Chief of the International Financial markets Division), a Fed Watcher at Irving Trust and Chief Economist at Nikko Securities International. He is widely quoted and appears in various media.   Mr. Brusca holds an MA and Ph.D. in economics from Michigan State University and a BA in Economics from the University of Michigan. His research pursues his strong interests in non aligned policy economics as well as international economics. FAO Economics’ research targets investors to assist them in making better investment decisions in stocks, bonds and in a variety of international assets. The company does not manage money and has no conflicts in giving economic advice.

Publications by Robert Brusca

  • EU economic sentiment indices continue to make progress but the chart highlights that fact that the rate of change, while still positive is steadily abating. And while some sectors are going quite well others are quite stuck in a low [...]

  • Euro-Area orders continue to knock down some pretty good numbers. There was a slowing over the previous three months but since then orders have snapped back and are on a tear, up by 1.4% in Oct, 2.2% in Nov and 2.1% in Dec. The three [...]

  • The Belgian Bank Index is still pushing higher in February. It has in this recovery cycle crossed over into positive territory for the first time after flirting with the possibility in earlier months. The BNB index stands in the 82nd [...]

  • Retail sales really are strong - UK retail sales showed some power in January Sales spurted by 3% after dropping in December. UK inflation is running at about twice the BOE inflation ceiling, with such high inflation, nominal sales [...]

  • Global| Feb 17 2011

    EMU Trade Gap Stays Negative

    In EMU exports are slipping faster than imports and that is keeping the trade deficit in negative numbers. This month Imports fell a bit faster than exports but not by enough to flip the deficit into positive territory. The sequential [...]

  • Japan's three main sectors MFG, Construction and Services have not been making much headway. It is not surprising that Japan's GDP contracted again in Q4. But the Teikoku sector indices which are plotted in the graph above shows a [...]

  • The early reports of GDP headlines are presented in the table above. EMU GDP is a touch weaker than had been expected. While UK growth was the first to disappoint, the UK today posted a 0.7% rise in its LEI for December clearly the UK [...]

  • Global| Feb 14 2011

    OECD LEIs Advance but Slow

    The US economy and the OECD remain on roughly the same path. The trend restored leading indicators from the OECD show that from 2008 onward, there has been a severe down-phase, and a strong up-phase that has since played out and now a [...]

  • Germany's inflation trends are on a clear upward path. Yr/Yr the headline rate is now on the cusp of excess at 1.9%. The Bundesbank used to put 2% as the upper bound for inflation when it held the reins. Now the ECB maintains that [...]

  • The larger Euro-Area economies and the UK show mixed results for December. While growth rates swooned over six months three-month growth rates for IP are back to where they were for yr/yr growth for the large economies - except for [...]

  • Global| Feb 09 2011

    German Trade Gaps Widens

    The German trade surplus rose this month and has been moving erratically higher. In December exports grew by 0.5% as imports fell by 2.3% enlarging the surplus gap. But that has not been the general story. Over 12-months imports have [...]

  • Global| Feb 08 2011

    German IP Shows Split Trends

    Not surprisingly German orders and IP show similar characteristics. In the orders report capital goods are strong and consumption orders are weak. For the IP it is the same relative configuration, but with even weaker trends for [...]