Economy in Brief

French household confidence has increased in seven of the last nine months and has gone nine months without a setback to confidence. However, the confidence reading is still weak historically. At 94 the current confidence reading is [...]

Last week, gasoline prices increased to an average $2.57 cents per gallon at the pump, the highest level since early-December and up by one-quarter versus the late-January low of $2.04. Haver Analytics constructs factors adjusting for [...]

The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas reported that its April Composite index of factory sector activity was fairly steady m/m at a level of -16.0, the fourth consecutive negative monthly reading. The figure reflected weakness amongst [...]

Germany's Ifo climate gauge is on a 6-month string of increases that has taken that gauge to a 10-month high. At its current position the gauge stands in the 80.5 percentile of its historic queue of values, roughly in the top 20% of [...]

New orders for durable goods jumped 4.0% during March (0.7% y/y) following an unrevised 1.4% February decline. Leading the increase were orders for defense aircraft which roughly doubled m/m (26.5% y/y). Nondefense aircraft orders [...]

The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City reported that business activity continues to deteriorate. The Composite index of 10th District factory sector activity fell to -7 this month, the lowest level since May 2009. Deterioration in [...]

New home sales during March declined to 481,000 (+19.4% y/y) from 543,000 during February, initially reported as 539,000. The latest figure missed expectations for 510,000 sales in the Action Economics Forecast Survey and was the [...]

Both the EMU manufacturing and services indices backtracked in April. The overall index fell by one-half point; each component fell by one-half point or less. Yet, for the EMU as a whole, the overall index and each component continue [...]