Economy in Brief

What jumps out at you in the table of manufacturing PMIs ranked on their performance since January 2012 is the abject weakness in Mexico. The chart at the top shows that the Mexican manufacturing PMI is moving opposite to the U.S. and [...]

Industrial sector activity remains on a strong footing. The ISM composite index of factory sector activity increased to 57.7 during February from an unrevised 56.0 in January. It was highest reading since August 2014. Expectations [...]

The value of construction put-in-place fell 1.0% in January (+3.1% y/y). This decline did follow upward revisions to December and November, with December now up 0.1% versus -0.2% reported initially, and November up 1.5%, revised from [...]

Disposable personal income, after adjustment for higher prices, fell 0.2% during January following two months of 0.1% increase. It was the first decline since March 2015. The y/y increase fell to 2.0%, and compared to 4.4% y/y growth [...]

The Chicago Purchasing Managers Business Barometer Index recovered to 57.4 in February after a decline to 50.3 in January. The latest figure was the highest since January 2015. The February reading exceeded expectations for 53.0 in [...]

The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index for February jumped to 114.8, the highest level since July 2001. The Action Economics Forecast Survey had looked for a modest decline to 111.0. During the past thirty years, there has [...]

GDP growth and the theory of relativity GDP growth in the EMU, the U.K. and the U.S. is hardly knocking anyone's socks off. But what has been happening is that GDP has become remarkably free of worryingly weak results. Of course, in [...]

Estimates of economic performance last quarter were little changed from the advanced estimates. Growth of 1.9% in Q4'16 gross domestic product equaled the estimate issued last month; it followed a 3.5% gain in Q3. During all of last [...]