Economy in Brief: 2018

The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that its total Mortgage Applications Volume Index rose 4.5% last week (6.8% y/y) following a 4.1% rise during the prior week. Purchase loan applications strengthened 6.1% (8.7% y/y) following [...]

The National Association of Realtors reported that sales of existing homes in 2017 improved 2.0% to 5.547 million units. It was the highest level of sales since 2006, despite a December decline of 3.6% (+1.1% y/y) to 5.570 million [...]

Euro area and German manufacturing PMIs stepped back in January while the services sector made gains. Services that have been flat or weaker terms of their 12-month and six-month average PMI levels in the EMU and Germany have broken [...]

The Federal Housing Finance Agency's (FHFA) index of U.S. house prices rose 6.6% y/y during November. The rate of increase has picked up from its low of 5.2% in 2014. In the month of November, prices rose 0.4% m/m after a 0.6% October [...]

As the unemployment rate declined during December to a 10-year low of 4.1%, it continued to vary greatly amongst the states. At the high end were two states which realized unemployment at or above 6.0%. At the low end, were several [...]

The ZEW experts continue to mark up their perceptions growth. Today the IMF did the same, releasing a forecast for global growth that was higher by than 0.2 percentage points than the outlook it released in October. The IMF puts more [...]

Retail gasoline prices rose to $2.57 per gallon (10.4% y/y) last week from $2.56 per gallon. It was the highest level since November. Haver Analytics constructs factors adjusting for the seasonal variation in gasoline pump prices. The [...]

The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia's Nonmanufacturing Business Index of current conditions at the company level increased to 29.3 in January from 20.6 during December. It was the highest index level since August. Forty-six [...]