Economy in Brief

The value of construction put-in-place improved 0.1% (8.0% y/y) during December following a 0.6% November decline, revised from -0.4%. For all of last year, construction activity strengthened 10.5% versus a 9.6% gain in 2014. A 0.5% [...]

Activity in the factory sector continued to contract in January for the fourth consecutive month. The ISM Composite Index of factory sector activity of 48.2 compared to 48.0 in December, revised from 48.2. The reading roughly equaled [...]

Among the manufacturing PMIs listed in the table, 7 of 16 of them reside below their breakeven diffusion value of 50. However, even more of them appear to be even weaker when simply expressed as their percentile rank or standing in [...]

Personal consumption expenditures were little changed during December (3.2% y/y) following a revised 0.5% November increase, initially reported as 0.3%. A 0.1% rise had been expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. When [...]

The Chicago Purchasing Managers report indicated that its General Business Barometer surged to 55.6 in January from 42.9 in December, and more than made up the declines during the prior two months. The index level was the highest in [...]

The year-over-year growth in GDP has been gaining for France (as the chart shows), but on that same basis, household consumption has begun to pull back. On a quarterly basis, France GDP slowed to a 1% pace from 1.3% in Q3. France ends [...]

The employment cost index for civilian workers increased 0.6% (2.0% y/y) during Q4'15, as expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. Wages increased 0.6% (2.1% y/y) for a second month and benefits rose 0.7% (1.8% y/y). The [...]

Overall economic growth eased during Q4 to 0.7% (AR, 1.8% y/y) versus 2.0% growth in Q3. It was the weakest gain since Q1 of last year. A 0.8% rise had been expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. Slower growth was realized [...]