Economy in Brief

Initial claims for unemployment insurance edged down to 336,000 (-8.2% y/y) during the week ended February 15 versus an unrevised 339,000 during the week prior. Expectations had been for 335,000 claims in the Action Economic forecast [...]

Consumer prices nudged 0.1% higher (1.6% y/y) during January following a 0.2% December rise. The increase matched consensus expectations in the Action Economics survey. Consumer prices excluding food and energy also gained 0.1% [...]

The price for a gallon of regular gasoline prices increased to $3.38 (-9.8% y/y) last week but remained down versus the $3.78 per gallon peak reached in February of last year. Haver Analytics constructs seasonal factors to account for [...]

The Producer Price Index underwent major revision this month. It now includes prices for final demand of goods, services and construction as well as a reading of intermediate demand prices. The overall final demand PPI rose 0.2% in [...]

The Greek merchandise trade deficit slipped deeper into red-ink territory in December, falling to 1.5 billion euro from a 1.3 billion euro deficit in November. At this point it's not clear what we would consider as truly good news for [...]

Housing starts in January declined 16.0% (-2.0% y/y) to 880,000 units (AR) from 1.048 million in December, revised up from 999,000. The latest level fell short of expectations for 950,000 starts in the Action Economics survey. Starts [...]

Heavy snowfall this month depressed the Composite Housing Market Index from the National Association of Home Builders-Wells Fargo by 10 points versus January to 46. The m/m decline was the largest in the series history and the index [...]

The ZEW German index for February shows a significant climb in the current index as expectations were set back for the second month in a row, this time substantially. The current index rose to 50 this month from a level of 41.2 in [...]