Economy in Brief

The job market improved greatly last year. The job openings rate increased to 3.8% for the full-year, a record high for the series which dates back to 2000. It improved to 3.8% during December, also a record high, up from 3.4% in [...]

German trade flows continue to show deterioration sequentially as growth rates are fading but year-over-year exports and imports still post gains as the year-over-year German surplus has expanded. German exports show a sequential [...]

The National Federation of Independent Business reported that its Small Business Optimism Index declined 1.4% during January to 93.9 following a 0.7% December rise. The index was 6.4% below its peak of 100.4 in December 2014. [...]

The OECD has refused to panic over some ongoing erosion in its LEI series (called composite leading indicators or CLIs). Its LEI series for the OECD as a whole is construed as stable even as the series languishes below 100 and has [...]

The Labor Market Conditions Index from the Federal Reserve Board includes 19 indicators of labor market activity, covering the broad categories of unemployment and underemployment. These include jobs, workweeks, wages, vacancies, [...]

Consumer credit outstanding increased $21.3 billion during December following an unrevised $14.0 billion November gain. For all of last year, consumer credit balances grew 6.9% to $3.55 trillion, the same growth as in 2014. Action [...]

Nonfarm payrolls increased 151,000 during January following gains of 262,000 during December and 280,000 in November. Revisions subtracted a net 2,000 jobs in these two months. Expectations had been for a 198,000 rise in the Action [...]

The U.S. foreign trade deficit increased to $43.4 billion in December from November's $42.2 billion, which was revised from $42.4 billion. The December result was modestly larger than the Action Economics Forecast Survey estimate of [...]