Economy in Brief

The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City reported that its September Composite index of 10th District factory sector activity recovered to 6 after falling sharply to 3 in August. The composite index is an average of the production, new [...]

Initial unemployment insurance claims rebounded to 293,000 (-7.3% y/y) during the week ended September 20 from 281,000 in the prior week, revised from 280,000. The Action Economics Forecast Survey expected 300,000 claims in the latest [...]

New orders for durable goods fell back 18.2% during August (+8.9% y/y) following a 22.5% July surge, revised from 22.6%. The shortfall roughly matched expectations in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. Orders were pulled lower by a [...]

On the plus side of things, both EMU credit and money supply have begun to bend their growth rates higher. However, for money supply, growth is still weak. It remains below its feeble 2013 cycle peak. For credit, the growth rate has [...]

New home sales during August surged 18.0% (33.3% y/y) to 504,000 from a revised 427,000 in July, initially reported as 412,000. It was the highest level of sales since May 2008. The increase easily beat expectations for 430,000 sales [...]

The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that their total Mortgage Market Volume Index declined 4.1% last week (-25.1% y/y) following the prior week's 7.9% rise. Applications were near the lowest level of the economic recovery. [...]

In the wake of the weak PMI data from Markit released yesterday, it's not surprising to see that the German Ifo index continues to slip in September. The Ifo all-sector index has fallen from 5.3 in August to a level of 2.3 in [...]

The Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond reported that its September Composite Index of Manufacturing Sector activity improved to 14 from 12 in August. It was the highest level since February 2011. Driving the index higher was improvement [...]