Economy in Brief: 2019

The thrill is gone in France. In 2017, French manufacturing did exceptionally well, but it lost steam gradually in 2018 and at end-2018 the momentum is gone and output in manufacturing is falling for the third consecutive month. The [...]

Initial unemployment insurance claims declined to 216,000 (-13.6% y/y) during the week ended January 5 from 233,000 in the prior week, revised from 231,000. It was the lowest level of initial claims in four weeks. The Action Economics [...]

Household confidence in France fell to 87 in December from 91 in November. That leaves confidence at a rank standing in its 15.9 percentile on data back to 1990. All the readings deteriorated in the month or were unchanged. The only [...]

The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that its total Mortgage Applications Index jumped 23.5% (-7.0% y/y) during the week ended January 4 following three consecutive weeks of decline. Applications to purchase a home jumped 16.5% [...]

Consumers continue to expand their credit balances as employment increases. Consumer credit outstanding rose $22.16 billion during November following a $24.97 billion October gain, revised from $25.38 billion. Together, these two [...]

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the total job openings rate eased to 4.4% during November, retracing its October gain to 4.5%. The job openings rate is the job openings level as a percent of total employment plus the job [...]

German IP moves lower and faster than its diffusion reading German output is falling over 12 months; however, on a diffusion basis, the German reading in November is 51.8, pointing to ongoing expansion. This creates some dissonance [...]

The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) reported that its Small Business Optimism Index slipped to 104.4 during December, down for the fourth straight month. During all of 2018, optimism rose 1.7%, on average, after a [...]