Economy in Brief: 2017

The GfK month-ahead survey for German consumer confidence has reached its highest reading on record for the third time. It first reached this level in June 2015 then matched it in September 2016. This is its third peaking in the last [...]

Initial unemployment insurance claims rose to 259,000 (-5.2% y/y) during the week ended January 21 from 237,000 claims in the prior week, revised from 234,000. Expectations in the Action Economics Forecast Survey had called for [...]

The increase in the overall unemployment rate to 4.7% during December reflects a range of state unemployment rates from a high of 6.7% in Alaska to a 2.8% low in both Massachusetts and South Dakota. Alaska's jobless rate continued to [...]

January brings a slight rolling over of the values for the IFO index. Each sector has a reading that is slightly lower month-to-month. The combination all-sector index is lower by 2.2 points on the month. This is comprised of a [...]

The Federal Housing Finance Agency's (FHFA) index of U.S. house prices rose 0.5% during November after a 0.3% gain in October, revised from 0.4%. The y/y change remained fairly steady at 6.1%, but the three-month annualized growth of [...]

The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that its total Mortgage Market Volume Index increased 4.0% last week (-15.9% y/y) following a 0.8% rise during the week prior. Purchase applications rebounded 6.0% (2.3% y/y) after a 5.2% [...]

The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia's Nonmanufacturing Business Index of current conditions in January rose to 33.3 from 26.1 during December, revised from 30.4. It was the highest level since October 2015. Forty-nine percent of [...]

During all of 2016, sales of existing homes increased 3.8% to 5.452 million, the highest level since 2006, when sales reached 6.478 million. During December alone, however, sales eased 2.8% (+0.7% y/y) to 5.490 million units (AR) from [...]