Economy in Brief

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported that pending sales of single-family homes moved 0.8% lower during February, the eighth strait monthly decline. The 0.2% January drop was revised from a 0.1% uptick reported last [...]

Initial claims fell sharply to 311,000 during the week ended March 22 from a little-revised 321,000 in the prior week. It was the lowest level since the last week of November. Expectations had been for 324,000 claims in the Action [...]

Real GDP growth for Q4'13 was revised slightly higher to 2.6% (2.6% y/y) from 2.4% estimated last month. The Department of Commerce, in this third estimate, indicated that growth remained down sharply from 4.1% in the third quarter. [...]

The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that their total mortgage market index fell 3.5% last week (-56.1% y/y) following a revised 0.2% uptick. Applications were roughly two-thirds below the peak in September 2012. Applications to [...]

German economic climate for April in the GfK format has stalled out or paused at a relatively high value. Climate in Germany gets better than this less than 5% of the time. That makes this level an impressive standing. Economic [...]

New orders for durable goods can be quite volatile depending on what's happening in the transportation sector, which accounts for roughly one-third of the total. Total durable goods orders recovered 2.2% (0.2% y/y) last month [...]

Consumers are emerging from a winter funk. Consumer confidence, as measured by the Conference Board, rose to an index reading of 82.3 this month (33.0% y/y) from February's little revised 78.3. The latest figure was the highest since [...]

New home sales fell 3.3% to 440,000 (-3.3% y/y) during February as January sales were revised lower to 455,000, initially reported as 468,000. The latest figure fell short of expectations for 445,000 sales in the Action Economics [...]