Economy in Brief

Companies remain hesitant to significantly ramp up new job creation. The ADP/Moody's National Employment Report showed a 136,000 rise (1.6% y/y) in non-farm private sector jobs last month. That followed revised increases of 112,000 [...]

Nonfarm business sector productivity growth during Q1'13 was revised slightly downward to 0.5% (SAAR) from 0.7% reported initially. That was a rebound from the 1.7% decline during Q4'12. It left the y/y gain of 0.9% on a par with the [...]

The price of regular gasoline held steady last week at $3.65 per gallon and remained down just slightly versus last year. Prices remain below the $3.78 per gallon peak reached late in February. Haver Analytics constructs seasonal [...]

The International Council of Shopping Centers and Goldman Sachs reported that chain store sales jumped 1.9% last week (4.3% y/y). That was enough to lift this month's starting point 0.6% above the May average. For all of May sales [...]

The U.S. foreign trade deficit deepened during April to $40.3B from $37.1B in March, revised from $38.8B. A $41.0B deficit had been expected. Data were revised back to January 1999. A 2.4% rebound (-1.4% y/y) in imports caused the m/m [...]

In May the manufacturing index for the European Monetary Union rose to 48.32 from 46.69. Month-to-month the manufacturing barometers improved for every country in the table. The greatest month-to-month gain was in Denmark which [...]

Unit sales of light motor vehicles recovered during May by 2.6% m/m (9.7% y/y) to 15.31M (SAAR), according to the Autodata Corporation. These sales compare to the recovery peak of 15.54M in November. Sales outperformed expectations [...]

Building activity improved marginally during April. The value of construction put-in-place gained 0.4% (4.3% y/y) after a revised 0.8% March decline and a 0.8% February increase, revised from -1.7% and 1.5%, respectively. A 0.9% gain [...]