Economy in Brief

Initial claims for unemployment insurance fell to 319,000 (-3.9% y/y) in the week ended May 3 from 345,000 in the week ended April 26, revised from 344,000. Expectations had been for 328,000 claims in the Action Economics Forecast [...]

Nonfarm business sector productivity fell at a 1.7% annual rate (+1.4% y/y) during Q1'14 following 2.3% growth during Q4, revised from last month's estimate of a 1.8% rise. Real output growth of 0.3% (3.2% y/y) was accompanied by a [...]

The Federal Reserve Board reported that consumer credit outstanding increased $17.5 billion during March following a $13.0 billion February gain, last month reported as $16.5 billion. The increase outpaced expectations for a $15.0 [...]

The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that their total Mortgage Market Volume Index improved 5.3% last week (-62.9% y/y) but remained in the sideways pattern of the last month. Applications remained two-thirds below the peak in [...]

German orders fell by 2.8% in March, an unexpected drop. The decline comes after a 0.9% gain in February and a small 0.1% increase in January. On balance, the weakness is severe enough to drive the three-month annualized growth rate [...]

Worker productivity declined last quarter at the same time that adverse winter weather held down economic activity. Nonfarm business sector productivity fell at a 1.7% annual rate (+1.4% y/y) during Q1'14 following 2.3% growth during [...]

The International Council of Shopping Centers and Goldman Sachs reported that chain store sales declined 2.0% (2.0% y/y) last week, retracing two weeks of increase. The rise left sales up 2.0% versus last year. During the last ten [...]

The price for a gallon of regular gasoline declined to $3.68 last week (+4.1% y/y. The drop reversed the prior week's rise but prices still were not far from the $3.78 per gallon peak reached in February of last year. To account for [...]