Economy in Brief

Greek inflation has slowed its rate of descent in June. In March, prices were falling by 1.5% year-over-year. In April that accelerated to -1.6%; in May, prices were falling by 2.1% year-over-year. In June, the year-over-year decline [...]

The price for a gallon of regular gasoline edged two cents lower to $3.68 last week (+5.3% y/y). Prices remained lower than the $3.78 per gallon peak reached in February of last year. To account for seasonal volatility, Haver [...]

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in its Job Openings & Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) that the job openings rate increased to 3.2% during May from an unrevised 3.1% in April. The latest level was the highest since September [...]

Germany's trade flows have slowed with both exports and imports falling in May. Exports fell by 1.1% following a strong 2.6% April gain. Imports fell by an outsized 3.4% after climbing by a skinny 0.2% in April. Import growth appears [...]

The National Federation of Independent Business reported that its Small Business Optimism Index slipped to 95.0 during June after improvement to 96.6 in May. The latest level remained near its highest since September 2007, just before [...]

The overall civilian unemployment rate fell sharply to 6.1% in June, down from the high of 9.6% reached during all of 2010. Improvement extends across all age brackets, though the young continue to realize relatively high rates of [...]

German industrial production in May fell for the third month in a row. The trends for overall industrial production are now showing a steady decline from 1.2% over 12 months, to -3.3% over six months, to -10.9% over three months. The [...]

The US merchandise trade deficit contracted to $44.4 billion in May from $47 billion in April. On the month, exports rose by 1% as imports fell by 0.3%, providing the impetus for the trade balance contraction. Merchandise exports grew [...]