Economy in Brief

The long steady drop of the euro exchange rate is boosting German export orders. German orders rose by 4.2% in December led by foreign orders that rose 4.8% after a moderate 0.9% November drop. Domestic German orders rose by 3.4% in [...]

The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that their total Mortgage Market Volume Index notched 1.3% higher last week (36.0% y/y) following a slip during the prior week. Refinance applications rose 2.5% (57.7% y/y) and reversed half [...]

The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) composite index of nonmanufacturing sector activity inched up to 56.7 during January from a revised 56.5 in December. Earlier data was revised due to new seasonal factors. The latest numbers [...]

The EMU total PMI showed an advance for January but still in the context of sequential declines from its 12-month to 6-month to 3-month averages. Sequential decline also applies to the two EMU components for services and manufacturing [...]

The ADP/Moody's National Employment Report indicated that nonfarm private sector payrolls increased 213,000 last month (2.3% y/y) following a 253,000 December rise, revised from 241,000, and a 274,000 increase in November, earlier [...]

Sales of light vehicles declined 1.5% during January to 16.66 million (AR) from 16.92 million in December. Despite a solid 8.9% y/y increase, sales have trended sideways since last summer. Light truck sales have shown strength with [...]

During all of last year, new orders to manufacturers rose a steady 2.8%. During December, however, forward momentum lost steam. New orders fell 3.4% (-3.6% y/y) following a revised 1.7% November decline, last month reported as -0.7%. [...]

Denial is not a viable option with which to fight deflation. I'm not saying that the euro area has a deflation problem, but of the 60 evaluations at the country level for monthly and sequential growth rates, only SIX are positive [...]