Economy in Brief

Italian consumer confidence jumped to an index reading of 111.1 in December from 108.1 in November. The confidence index which had peaked in this cycle in November 2015 had been in a steady slide and had fallen or been flat in seven [...]

Japan continues to see weak prices in train. Even in a global environment where inflation trends are weak, Japan's trend is still weaker than trends for other major competitors. As much as the bank of Japan has tried to pump up [...]

U.S. consumers are feeling a lot more optimistic about the future in December, according to The Conference Board Index of Consumer Confidence. It reported that its headline consumer confidence index for December jumped up to 113.7, [...]

Sales of new single-family homes during November increased 5.2% (16.5% y/y) to 592,000 (SAAR) from an unrevised 563,000 during October. Sales of 575,000 had been expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. The median price of a [...]

Italian retail sales are up sharply in October after falling for three consecutive months. The month's gain is large enough that the three-month annualized growth rate is now accelerating from 12-month to six-month to three-month. [...]

Personal income remained unchanged during November (3.5% y/y) following a 0.5% October rise, revised from 0.6%. A 0.3% increase had been expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. Disposable personal income eased negligibly [...]

Initial claims for unemployment insurance strengthened to 275,000 (2.2% y/y) in the week ended December 17 following an unrevised slip to 254,000 in the prior week. It was the highest level of claims since June. Expectations had been [...]

The Conference Board's Composite Index of Leading Economic Indicators remained unchanged during November (0.7% y/y) following an unrevised 0.1% October uptick. A 0.2% rise had been expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. The [...]