Economy in Brief: January 2020

The U.S. trade deficit in goods and services declined to $43.09 billion during November from $46.94 billion in October, revised from $47.20 billion. It was the smallest deficit since October 2016. A $43.9 billion deficit had been [...]

Retail gasoline prices inched up to $2.58 per gallon (15.2% y/y) last week from $2.57 per gallon in the previous week. Last week's price roughly equaled last year's average. Typically, gasoline prices weaken this time of year and [...]

The composite PMIs that weight the services and manufacturing sectors to arrive at an overall PMI standing continue to show a great deal of weakness in December. The unweighted average percentile standing for this month's PMIs by [...]

The Industrial Materials Price Index from the Foundation for International Business and Economic Research (FIBER) increased 2.6% during the four weeks ended Friday and 3.6% over the last three months. The price index increased 1.4% [...]

The Autodata Corporation reported that December sales of light vehicles fell 1.9% from November (-3.3% y/y) to 16.87 million units (SAAR). Earlier figures were revised. For the full year 2019 sales of 17.00 million units compared to [...]

Activity in the factory remains constrained. The ISM Manufacturing Diffusion Index for December fell to 47.2 after easing to 48.1 in November. It was the fifth consecutive reading below 50, indicating a contraction in activity. A [...]

Well, Happy New Year…but realistically it is what it is. Isn't it? The killing of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, the architect of Iran's military expansion in the Middle East, has created a fire-storm of backlash. But the very [...]

The value of construction put-in-place rose a larger-than-expected 0.6% m/m (+4.1% y/y) in November with significant upward revisions to both October and September. The Action Economics Forecast Survey had looked for a 0.3% m/m rise. [...]