Economy in Brief

Total business inventories increased 0.4% in July (5.9% y/y) after an unrevised 0.4% rise during June. For all of last quarter, faster accumulation of inventories added 1.4 percentage points to real GDP growth after a 1.2 percentage [...]

Import prices fell 0.9% during August (-0.4% y/y) following a revised 0.3% decline during July, earlier reported as -0.2%. A 1.0% shortfall was expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. A 4.4% decline (-5.3% y/y) in petroleum [...]

Euro area industrial output showed a strong rebound of 1% in July from its decline of 0.3% in June. However the gain is still not persuasive. In the new quarter, the quarter-to-date calculations show a rise in output at a 2.7% pace [...]

Retail and food service sales improved 0.6% during August (5.0% y/y) following a revised 0.3% July gain, revised from no change. A 0.5% increase had been expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. Sales increases were broad- [...]

The Federal Government posted a $128.7 billion budget deficit during August of FY 2014, and roughly matched expectations in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. For the first eleven months of the current fiscal year, the government [...]

The Quarterly Service Sector Survey, produced by the U.S. Census Bureau, is designed to give timely, detailed indications of activity in the service sector. These indicators feed into estimates of GDP. The latest figures covering [...]

Initial unemployment insurance claims rose to 315,000 during the week ended September 6 from 304,000 in the prior week, revised from 302,000. It was the highest level of claims since the last week of June. The Action Economics [...]

Inflation in the euro area continues to snake lower. Among the early reporters of inflation data, Spain has the lowest year-over-year inflation at -0.5%, followed by Greece and Italy each at -0.2%. Germany is a high inflation country [...]