Economy in Brief: April 2014

Producer and consumer price trends continue to work lower in the European Monetary Union. At the same time, growth continues to be for the most part slow and uneven. These two trends put pressure on the European Central Bank to act. [...]

Inventories in the factory sector increased 0.7% (2.5% y/y). Transportation equipment inventories gained 1.6% (9.2% y/y) while excluding transportation, inventories rose 0.4% (1.0% y/y). Furniture inventories increased 0.8% (0.3% [...]

The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that their total mortgage market index fell 1.2% last week (-54.9% y/y) following an unrevised 3.5% drop during the prior week. It was the third decline in the last four weeks and applications [...]

The ADP/Moody's National Employment Report reported a 191,000 rise (2.0% y/y) in nonfarm private sector jobs during March. Expectations were for a 189,000 increase in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. Last month's rise followed [...]

According to the Autodata Corporation, unit sales of light vehicle sales during March rose 7.1% y/y to 16.40 million (SAAR), roughly the highest level since February 2007. On a month-to-month basis, sales improved 6.9%. Sales of light [...]

The value of construction put-in-place eked out a 0.1% rise (8.7% y/y) during February following a revised 0.2% January slip, initially reported as a 0.1% gain. Recently weak performance lowered three-month growth in construction to [...]

Moderate improvement in manufacturing sector activity continued last month following a harsh winter. The Composite Index of Manufacturing Sector Activity from the Institute for Supply Management improved to 53.7 during March from an [...]

Japan's much awaited Tankan report for large enterprises showed an increase for manufacturing firms in the first quarter to 17 from 16 in the fourth quarter. But nonmanufacturing firms saw an increase to 24 from 20 in the fourth [...]