Economy in Brief

The headline Final Demand Producer Price Index dipped 0.1% (-0.1% y/y) in March after an unrevised 0.2% February decline. The easing compared to a 0.3% increase expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. A 0.9% decline (-2.5% [...]

Awfully good results for a flawed pattern of growth February industrial output has fallen and is lower in two of the last three months with measurable positive gains in only four of the last 12 months and with manufacturing output [...]

Consumers continue to spend cautiously. Total retail sales & spending at food services declined 0.3% (+1.7% y/y) during March following no change in February, last month reported as a 0.1% dip. The decline in sales compared to [...]

The U.S. Treasury Department reported a $108.0 billion budget deficit during March of 2016, roughly double the size of the $52.9 billion deficit twelve months earlier. A $94.0 billion deficit had been expected in the Action Economics [...]

While there is a great deal of focus on what stimulus the ECB can provide or how much a weak euro will stimulate EMU area growth, one factor that should be helping to spur growth in the EMU is the reduction of price level divergence [...]

Regular gasoline prices remained fairly steady last week at $2.07 per gallon (-14.1% y/y) versus $2.08 in the prior week, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. The price compares to a low of $1.72 in February, but remained down [...]

Import prices improved 0.2% during March (-6.2% y/y) following a 0.4% February decline, revised from -0.3%. The increase was much softer than the 1.0% rise expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. Petroleum import prices [...]

The National Federation of Independent Business reported that its Small Business Optimism Index eased 0.3% during March to 92.6 following a slightly revised 1.1% February fall. It was the fourth decline in the last five months and [...]