Economy in Brief

Severe winter weather may have been a factor last month, but retail spending has been under pressure for a while. Overall retail sales including food services & drinking places fell 0.6% (+1.7% y/y) during February following an [...]

On a day when Bank of England Governor Mark Carney has said that it would be foolish to cut interest rates to combat low inflation, the U.K. has also produced a sharp weakening in its industrial sector. Manufacturing output is lower [...]

The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that their total Mortgage Market Volume Index edged 1.3% lower last week (+11.3% y/y). Applications are down 26.1% during the last seven weeks. Refinance applications led the way lower with a [...]

Inventories at the wholesale level in January gained 0.3% (6.2% y/y) following little change in December, revised from 0.1%. Durable goods inventories rose 0.6% (7.7% y/y). Electrical equipment inventories were quite strong and [...]

The job openings rate during January held at 3.4%, up from the recession low of 1.6%. The job openings rate is the number of job openings on the last business day of the month as a percent of total employment plus job openings. The [...]

The National Federation of Independent Business reported a February reading of 98.0 for its Small Business Optimism Index versus an unrevised 97.9 during January. The figure remained near its highest level since February 2007. [...]

The OECD LEIs display values above 100 for most countries, indicating that growth is still on the docket for most of them. Japan, China, Austria and Germany are exceptions. But even the exceptions have numerical

Gasoline prices bumped up another 2 cents last week to $2.49 cents per gallon. The rise now totals 44 cents (21.7%) from the low 6 weeks ago. Despite the gains, prices remained well below the $3.70 per gallon peak reached last June. [...]