Economy in Brief: September 2007

GDP slows, private consumption holds up, capital formation slows. GDP is slowing in Italy’s quarterly and annual framework. Private consumption has been holding up and even improving slightly, but remains at a subdued pace around the [...]

The ratchet lower in German production follows the sharp weakening in German industrial orders. The sequential growth rates in the table below do not show the slowing due to base effects (in April). The table shows that IP was soft in [...]

The OECD leading indicator tells a solid story of business expansion past and future. The current reading is not quite what we would like, however. The rise in these indicators that came – on a six month change basis - in March of [...]

Oh, well. Nonfarm payrolls declined 4,000 in August, the first monthly decrease since August 2003. Needless to say, forecasters and market participants are surprised at this outcome; the consensus expected a pickup to a 113,000 gain [...]

The OECD leading indicator tells a solid story of business expansion past and future. The current reading is not quite what we would like, however. The rise in these indicators that came – on a six month change basis - in March of [...]

UK industrial production trends are not uniform. Consumer durable and nondurable goods output has been steadily - and in the recent period - strongly expanding. That makes the UK unlike most EMU countries with its strong consumer [...]

Initial claims for unemployment insurance fell sharply last week and more than reversed the prior week's large increase. Claims for the week ending 8/30 fell 19,000 to 318,000. Consensus expectations were for 328,000 claims. The prior [...]

The non-manufacturing sector Business Activity Index for August was unchanged from its July level of 55.8, according to the Institute for Supply Management. Consensus expectations had been for a decline to 54.5. Since the series' [...]