Economy in Brief

Real GDP was revised to a 2.9% annual rate of decline in Q1 (+1.5% y/y) following a 1.0% drop reported last month. It was the largest decline in five years and compared to a 1.8% drop in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. Consumer [...]

The Conference Board reported that their reading of consumer confidence improved 3.6% (3.8% y/y) to 85.2 this month from 82.2 in May, revised from 83.0. The latest figure was the highest since January 2008 and beat expectations for [...]

Germany's Ifo index's expectation component dropped sharply to 6.0 in June from 8.6 in May. The index has dropped sharply over the last two months. Historically, its two-month drop is greater than this only about 17% of the time. The [...]

New home sales during May increased 18.6% m/m (16.9% y/y) to 504,000 from 425,000 during April, initially reported as 433,000. The latest was the highest level of sales since May 2008 and beat expectations for 440,000 sales in the [...]

The U.S. House Price Index from the Federal Housing and Finance Agency (FHFA) held steady during April, the weakest monthly reading since November. As a result, the year-to-year growth rate fell to 5.9% from an 8.5% peak in July of [...]

The price for a gallon of regular gasoline ticked higher to $3.70 last week (3.6% y/y). The price has been near the current level since April but remained down from the $3.78 per gallon peak reached in February of last year. To [...]

Earlier improvement in home sales picked up steam last month. Sales of existing single-family homes in May jumped 4.9% (-5.0% y/y) to 4.890 million (AR) from 4.660 million in April, earlier reported as 4.650 million. Despite the [...]

The overall EMU private sector activity index fell in June, dropping for the second month in a row. Both manufacturing and services components weakened although each continued to show expansion in its respective sector. Germany's [...]