Economy in Brief

The Mortgage Bankers Association index of total mortgage applications fell 3.8% (-1.4% y/y) last week to the lowest level since late December. Home purchase applications fell 5.2% (+4.1% y/y) while applications to refinance an [...]

Deterioration in factory sector momentum remains in place. For January, total durable goods orders fell 5.2% following a 3.7% December rise, revised from 4.6%. A 4.0% decline had been expected.Year-to-year, durable goods orders slid [...]

The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index for February rebounded to 69.6 and more than recovered the January decline. The gain outpaced Consensus forecasts for a rise to 60.5. During the last ten years, there has been a 47% [...]

Moody's has downgraded the UK economy and maybe it is because despite the governments adherence to austerity recovery still won't start. Markets do not seem to care much about what Moody's thinks. After the credit-rating agencies' [...]

During January, sales of new homes jumped 15.6% (28.9% y/y) to 437,000 (AR). That compared to 378,000 sales during December, revised from 369,000. Consensus expectations had been for sales of 380,000. Sales increased throughout the [...]

The recent upturn in the price of gasoline is continuing. The pump price for a gallon of regular gasoline increased another three cents last week to $3.78 per gallon (1.7% y/y). Prices have risen 53 cents in just the last eight weeks. [...]

Two factors can raise prices: Increased demand and/or lessened supply. Both were in place last year in the housing market. (See the Feb. 21st report on Haver.com) The seasonally adjusted Case-Shiller 20 City Home Price Index rose 6.9% [...]

The German IFO index has jumped sharply in February. From a diffusion value level of 1.3 in January the sector index has jumped to 7.3 in February. The overall Climate index, plotted in the chart, has made its third the strongest [...]