Economy in Brief

The output of U.S. factories increased 0.8% (1.6% y/y) during February following a little-revised 0.9% January decline. Overall industrial production improved 0.6% (2.8%y/y). Utility output, however, slipped 0.2% (+8.2% y/y) following [...]

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York indicated that its Empire State Factory Index of General Business Conditions for March improved to 5.61 from 4.48 during February. The latest figure roughly equaled expectations for a level of 6.0, [...]

The chart shows the path of inflation for the three largest countries in the European Monetary Union (Spain is the fourth largest). It's clear from this chart that inflation for Germany, France and Italy tends to follow the same [...]

The overall final demand PPI slipped 0.1% in February (+0.9% y/y) following a 0.2% gain in January. Producer prices excluding food & energy declined 0.2% (+1.1 y/y), the first decline in six months. Final demand prices for goods (35% [...]

The Federal Government posted a $193.5 billion budget deficit during February of FY 2014. The latest figure was smaller than the Action Economics Forecast Survey expectation of a $215.0 billion deficit. In the first five months of [...]

Total business inventories increased 0.4% in January (3.9% y/y) after a 0.5% December rise. These gains were accompanied a 0.9% decline (+2.5% y/y) in business sales after December's 0.1% slip. As a result, the inventory-to-sales [...]

Import prices increased 0.9% during February following a 0.4% January gain, revised from 0.1%. A 0.5% rise had been expected in the Action Economics survey. A 4.4% jump (-2.6% y/y) in petroleum prices added to an easier 0.2% [...]

In another sign of labor market improvement, initial claims for unemployment insurance fell to 315,000 during the week ended March 8 from 324,000 in the prior week, initially reported as 323,000. The latest level was the lowest since [...]