Economy in Brief: 2019

The story of an ongoing slowdown for global growth is not news. It is, in fact, the baseline case for most forecasts for 2019. Most of the special-case stories in play as the New Year unfolds (or unravels as the case may be) are about [...]

The ISM composite index of business activity in the factory sector fell to 54.1 during December after rising to 59.3 in November. It was the lowest reading since November 2016. A level of 57.8 had been expected in the Action Economics [...]

ADP reported in its National Employment Report that private nonfarm payrolls increased 271,000 during December following a 157,000 November rise, revised from 179,000. It was the largest increase since February 2017. During all of [...]

Initial unemployment insurance claims jumped 10,000 to 231,000 (-6.9% y/y) in the week ended December 29 versus an upwardly revised 221,000 in the previous week. The Action Economics Forecast Survey expectation was for 219,000 new [...]

Gasoline prices fell to $2.27 per gallon this past week (-10.1% y/y) from $2.32 during the prior week. Haver Analytics constructs factors to adjust for the marked seasonal variation in prices. The seasonally-adjusted gasoline price [...]

The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas reported in its Texas Service Sector Outlook Survey that the General Business Activity Index declined to -5.0 during December from 11.4 in November. It was lowest level since August 2016 and below [...]

Asia manufacturing PMIs continue weak in data reported in the New Year that are up-to-date through December 2018. The rank standing data are very mixed with China logging a very low 2.9 percentile standing and Malaysia on an all-time [...]

The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas reported in its Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey that the General Business Activity Index declined to -5.1 during December from 17.6 in November. It was the lowest level since June 2016. The index [...]