Economy in Brief

European Monetary Union (EMU) industrial production (excluding construction) rose a smart 1.1% in February, its strongest gain in eight months. Manufacturing output rose by 1.2%, its strongest gain in eight months as well. Still, [...]

The Federal Government reported a $52.9 billion budget deficit during March compared to a $36.9 billion deficit during March of 2014. A deficit of $43.0 billion had been expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. For the first [...]

The industrial commodity price index from the Foundation for International Business and Economic Research (FIBER) improved roughly 2.0% during the last eight weeks reflecting broad-based improvement amongst several industrial sectors. [...]

Japan is still a struggling economy that has tried various measures to jump start growth while also trying to regain fiscal control. The combination has been frustrating and that frustration continues as retail sales creep higher in [...]

The European economics continue to show a good deal of interregional disparity, but for the most part trends in production are improving. In the EMU in February only three of the early reports showed monthly IP declines, down from [...]

Import prices declined 0.3% (-10.5% y/y) during March and reversed February's 0.2% increase, revised from 0.4%. The Action Economics Forecast Survey anticipated a 0.4% decline. Prices of petroleum imports increased 0.8% (-45.1% y/y) [...]

Inventories at the wholesale level increased 0.3% during February (6.1% y/y) following a 0.4% January rise. Durable goods inventories gained 0.3% (7.6% y/y). Motor vehicle inventories increased 2.4% (12.6% y/y) and electrical [...]

German economic data have become a bit more confused recently. Yesterday German orders data were decisively downbeat with what leadership there was coming from an unexpected source, the consumer sector. In today's industrial output [...]