Economy in Brief: 2019

Initial claims for jobless insurance unexpectedly fell to 199,000 in week ended January 19 from a downwardly revised 212,000 in the previous week. The Action Economics Forecast Survey expected 216,000 claims. This is the lowest [...]

Gasoline prices averaged a fairly steady $2.25 per gallon this past week (-12.1% y/y)........ These data are reported by the U.S. Department of Energy. The price data can be found in Haver's WEEKLY and DAILY databases. Greater detail [...]

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Price Index for house purchases rose 0.3% (5.7% y/y) during October following a 0.2% September rise. The FHFA house price index is a weighted purchase-only index that measures average price [...]

Trade headlines Japan logged a deficit on its trade account of 184 billion yen in Decmber, its sixth deficit in a row and seventh in the last eight months. As the averages show, Japan's trade position has been in deficit over 12 [...]

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Price Index for house purchases rose a solid 0.4% m/m (5.8% y/y) in November following an upwardly revised 0.4% m/m increase in October (previously reported as +0.3% m/m). The 5.8% y/y rate of [...]

Retail gasoline prices were unchanged at $2.25 per gallon last week (-12.3% year-on-year). During 2018 prices ranged between the late-May high of $2.96 and the year-end low of $2.27. Haver Analytics constructs factors adjusting for [...]

The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia reported that its Nonmanufacturing Business Index of current conditions at the company level increased to 42.4 during November........... The expectations index for November rose to 53.6 [...]

The National Association of Realtors reported that sales of existing homes fell a greater-than-expected 6.4% in December to 4.990 million units (SAAR). This was the lowest reading and largest month-on-month decline since a regulatory- [...]