Economy in Brief

Personal income increased 0.3% (3.5% y/y) during December following a 0.1% November uptick, initially reported as no change. A 0.4% rise had been expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. During all of 2016, income grew 3.5%, [...]

New orders for durable declined 0.4% during December (+1.6% y/y) following a little-revised 4.8% November drop. A 3.0% rise had been expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. The decline in orders was prompted by a 2.2% drop [...]

French business and consumer confidence continue to work higher in January. The consumer measure has reached the level of 100 for the first time since late in 2007, posting a normalization milestone of sorts. At this level the French [...]

Economic growth decelerated during Q4'16 to 1.9% from a 3.5% gain in Q3. For all of last year, growth also decelerated to 1.6% from 2.6% in 2015. The Q4 figure fell short of expectations for a 2.1% rise in the Action Economics [...]

The Conference Board's Composite Index of Leading Economic Indicators increased 0.5% during December (1.1% y/y) following a revised 0.1% November uptick, initially reported as unchanged. It was the strongest gain since July, and [...]

Sales of new single-family homes declined 10.4% to 536,000 during December from a revised 598,000 in November, initially reported as 592,000. Sales of 589,000 had been expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. During December, [...]

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 [...]