Economy in Brief

Nonfarm business sector productivity fell at a 1.7% annual rate (+1.4% y/y) during Q1'14 following 2.3% growth during Q4, revised from last month's estimate of a 1.8% rise. Real output growth of 0.3% (3.2% y/y) was accompanied by a [...]

The Federal Reserve Board reported that consumer credit outstanding increased $17.5 billion during March following a $13.0 billion February gain, last month reported as $16.5 billion. The increase outpaced expectations for a $15.0 [...]

The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that their total Mortgage Market Volume Index improved 5.3% last week (-62.9% y/y) but remained in the sideways pattern of the last month. Applications remained two-thirds below the peak in [...]

German orders fell by 2.8% in March, an unexpected drop. The decline comes after a 0.9% gain in February and a small 0.1% increase in January. On balance, the weakness is severe enough to drive the three-month annualized growth rate [...]

Worker productivity declined last quarter at the same time that adverse winter weather held down economic activity. Nonfarm business sector productivity fell at a 1.7% annual rate (+1.4% y/y) during Q1'14 following 2.3% growth during [...]

The International Council of Shopping Centers and Goldman Sachs reported that chain store sales declined 2.0% (2.0% y/y) last week, retracing two weeks of increase. The rise left sales up 2.0% versus last year. During the last ten [...]

The price for a gallon of regular gasoline declined to $3.68 last week (+4.1% y/y. The drop reversed the prior week's rise but prices still were not far from the $3.78 per gallon peak reached in February of last year. To account for [...]

The services sector surveys for European economies and the US are completed today, allowing us to calculate total private sector indices for the various economies. The Markit index for the European Monetary Union moved up to 54.0 in [...]