Economy in Brief

Energy prices did a lot of nothing last week. The price for a gallon of regular gasoline held steady w/w at $3.55 (-3.6% y/y), but still was up 35 cents from the January low. Prices remained below the $3.78 per gallon peak reached in [...]

The Ifo continues to hold the high ground with its overall index standing in the top 15% of its historic range. The current situation stands in the top 21st percentile and the expectations index stands in the top 14th percentile, [...]

The U.S. House Price Index from the Federal Housing and Finance Agency (FHFA) increased 0.5% during January and by 7.4% y/y. That annual rate of appreciation has been steady since early last year. During the last twelve months prices [...]

The Chicago Federal Reserve reported that its National Activity Index (CFNAI) returned to positive territory last month. The gain to 0.14 followed a January reading of -0.45, revised from -0.39, which was the second consecutive [...]

The trend in the Markit composite PMI for the European Monetary Union advanced further in March even as the monthly readings backtracked to 53.2 from 53.3 in February. The 12-month, six-month and three-month moving averages show a [...]

The National Association for Business Economics released its median estimate for real GDP growth in 2015 and it's expected to improve to 3.1% from an unchanged estimate of 2.8% during 2014. Quarterly growth is expected to hold steady [...]

Reported early this month, the overall civilian unemployment rate during February was 6.7%, down from the high of 9.6% reached during all of 2010. Improvement extends across all age brackets. The youngest age brackets continue, [...]

The euro area current account surplus moved even higher in January as goods exports pulled back slightly and goods imports fell relatively sharply. Over three months export and import growth rates are pretty similar, a 2.2% pace for [...]