Economy in Brief

First time claims for unemployment insurance increased to 360,000 (-0.8% y/y) during the week ended July 6 from a little-revised 344,000 during the week prior. Consensus expectations were for 335,000 claims. The four week moving [...]

Import prices fell 0.2% last month (+0.2% y/y) following a revised 0.7% May decline, initially reported as -0.6%. No change in prices had been expected in the Action Economics survey. In a switch from prior months, lower prices for [...]

EMU-wide industrial production figures are not yet available. However, we have data available for wide group of the EU- and EMU- member countries. In the month of May, nine of these countries have already reported industrial [...]

Inventories at the wholesale level fell 0.5% (+3.3% y/y) during May following a 0.1% slip in April. A 6.0% decline (-6.3% y/y) in farm product inventories led the decline. Inventories of metals fell 1.7% (-3.1% y/y) following sharp [...]

Consumers regained their footing this month and ramped up spending. The International Council of Shopping Centers and Goldman Sachs reported that chain store sales surged 3.0% last week (2.9% y/y) to a record high. That gain raised [...]

The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that total applications for a home mortgage fell 4.0% (-33.3% y/y) last week, extending the decline to 43.6% since early-May. Last week's shortfall reflected a 4.4% drop (-38.4% y/y) in [...]

UK manufacturing took an unexpected sharp turn lower, falling by 0.8% in May. The climb was led by a sharp decline in consumer goods output which fell 2.9% on the month; that made it the second consecutive monthly drop. Capital goods [...]

The price of regular gasoline edged lower last week to $3.49 per gallon. That remained its lowest level since early January. Prices were well below the $3.78 per gallon peak reached late in February. Haver Analytics constructs [...]