Economy in Brief

The overall Final Demand Producer Price Index fell 0.8% during January (0.0% y/y) following a 0.2% December decline, revised from -0.3%. A 0.5% drop was expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. Prices excluding food & energy [...]

Housing starts during January edged 2.0% lower to 1.065 million from 1.087 million in December, revised from 1.089 million. Still, starts remained near the highest level in roughly seven years. Earlier figures were revised slightly [...]

U.K. claimant count paints a wonderful ongoing recovery picture of the economy. The number of claimants and their associated rate of unemployment surged higher in the financial crisis/recession and have since swooped lower to register [...]

The Composite Housing Market Index from the National Association of Home Builders-Wells Fargo declined to 55 in February (+19.6% y/y) from an unrevised 57 in January. It was the lowest figure since October. During the last ten years, [...]

The ZEW financial experts' expectations index is back at its highest level in 12 months. Its percentile standing shows it is higher about 28% of the time while the current index, which advanced strongly to 45.5 from 22.4, is higher [...]

The Empire State Factory Index of General Business Conditions fell to 7.78 during February, after rising to 9.95 in January. The figures remained well below the 27.41 peak reached last September. The figures are from the Federal [...]

The National Association of Realtors reported that during all of last year its Housing Affordability Composite Index declined to 166.2, the lowest level since 2008. For December, the index improved somewhat to 167.8 but remained down [...]

Once upon a time a considerable time ago, there was a far off land called Europe that decided to form a more perfect union, but a still a less-than-perfect union, and blend its data together using an average weighted by GDP and [...]