Economy in Brief

Nonfarm business sector productivity grew 3.2% last quarter (1.7% y/y) following its 3.6% Q3 rise. The gain beat the 2.5% expectation in the Action Economics survey. For all of last year productivity rose 0.6%, down from the 1.5% rise [...]

The outplacement firm of Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported that job cut announcements increased to 45,017 (11.6% y/y) during January and reversed the prior month's decline. Layoffs increased m/m the retail, financial, [...]

The U.S. foreign trade deficit deteriorated to $38.7 billion during December compared to a revised $34.6 billion in November, last month reported as $33.4 billion. A $36.0 billion deficit had been expected in the Action Economics [...]

In December, German orders fell by 0.5%. Foreign orders rose by 0.4%, a deceleration from November's 2.3% gain. The real culprit in the weakness of orders, however, is domestic demand. German domestic orders fell by 1.6% in December [...]

Initial claims for unemployment insurance matched expectations and declined to 331,000 (-8.3% y/y) during the week ended February 1. That's versus 351,000 during the week prior, revised from 348,000. It was the first decline in three [...]

The Composite Index for the service and construction sectors from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) improved during January to 54.0 and recovered December's decline. The latest figure roughly matched expectations for [...]

The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that their total mortgage market index improved 0.4% last week (-52.3% y/y). Applications rose 20.5% since the end of December. The gain over the last five week's was driven by a 28.8% [...]

The services reading for the euro area in January 2014 has been finalized at 51.57, up from 50.96 in December. Only two of the five European Monetary Union (EMU) members saw their services sectors backtracking in January; they were [...]