Economy in Brief: March 2020

Italian IP rose by a strong 3.4% month-to-month in January after falling by 2.4% in December. December’s losses were across the board, and similarly, January’s gains are also across the board. Despite the late in-the-quarter drop in [...]

The price of West Texas Intermediate crude oil plummeted yesterday. It declined to $31.13 per barrel after falling last week to an average $45.58. The latest was the lowest level since February 2016. The price of Brent crude oil [...]

Arguably Germany's industrial production finds itself in the eye of the storm. There is some January rebound as U.S. China tensions ratcheted down with the year-end Phase-One trade deal. With that, markets began to breathe a sigh of [...]

The Industrial Materials Price Index from the Foundation for International Business and Economic Research (FIBER) declined 0.9% during the four weeks ended Friday and 6.8% over the last year. The price index fell to the lowest level [...]

The U.S. trade deficit in goods and services increased to $48.88 billion in December ....... The international trade data, including relevant data on oil prices, can be found in Haver's USECON database. Detailed figures on [...]

Consumer credit outstanding increased $12.0 billion (4.4% y/y) during January following a $20.3 billion December gain, revised from $22.1 billion. A $17.0 billion increase had been expected by the Action Economics Forecast Survey. [...]

German orders rose by 5.5% in January after falling in each of the two previous months. The sharp gain is enough to boost growth positive over both three months and six months and to put orders on an accelerating path. The January [...]

The job market firmed in February. Nonfarm payroll employment increased 273,000 (1.6% y/y), repeating January's increase which was revised from 225,000. The December increase also was upwardly revised to 184,000 from 147,000. A [...]