Economy in Brief

There is no comparison between the drop in the US unemployment rate and the slow downward crawl of the unemployment rate in Europe. Of course, the US recovery has been ongoing while the European recovery is nascent. But that is part [...]

Retail spending recovered 0.3% last month (1.5% y/y) following a 0.6% January decline, revised from -0.4%. The latest gain roughly matched the 0.2% rise expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. A 0.3% improvement (2.2% y/y) [...]

Industrial production in the European Monetary Union made a surprising decline in January. Yet, it only ticked down by 0.1% but that does mark two consecutive declines. Looking at manufacturing, we see a rebound of 0.3% in January [...]

The Mortgage Bankers Association indicated that their total mortgage market index fell 2.1% last week (-54.7% y/y) following an upturn in the prior period. Applications remained 63.4% lower than the peak in September 2012. [...]

Prices in the energy complex firmed last week. The price for a gallon of regular gasoline increased to $3.51 (-5.3% y/y) last week, up 22 cents from the low four weeks ago. Nevertheless, prices remained below the $3.78 per gallon peak [...]

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in its Job Openings & Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) that the job openings rate held at 2.8% versus an unrevised 2.8% in December. Earlier figures were revised slightly. The rate has moved [...]

Italian GDP edged up ever so slowly in the fourth quarter, registering a gain of 0.3% at an annual rate. Public consumption was up in the fourth quarter along with capital formation while net exports were a positive contributor as [...]

The National Federation of Independent Business reported that its Small Business Optimism Index declined sharply to 91.4 during February from 94.1 in January. The latest figure was the lowest since March of last year and was down 3.2% [...]