Economy in Brief

Petroleum prices continue under pressure. The pump price for a gallon of regular gasoline fell another ten cents last week (+0.8% y/y) to $3.25 per gallon. Since their September peak prices have fallen sixty three cents per gallon. [...]

Recent improvement in the housing market won't let up. The Composite Housing Market Index from the National Association of Home Builders-Wells Fargo increased this month to 47 from a downwardly revised 45 in November. For all of 2012, [...]

The U.S. current account deficit lessened last quarter to $107.5B from $118.1B in Q2. The easing left the deficit to GDP ratio at 2.7%, its least in roughly three years. Total exports gained 0.2% (1.7% y/y) although goods exports [...]

German manufacturing is beginning to feel the effects of the slowdown in the rest of the Euro Area. Data released today and shown in Haver's GERMANY database show that employment in the manufacturing industry dropped in October to [...]

The National Association for Business Economics held the expectation for real GDP growth next year at 2.1%, the same as in October's survey. However, these are lowered figures versus 2.7% in the May tally. That follows an unrevised [...]

The Empire State Factory Index of General Business Conditions was negative for the fifth consecutive month. The December reading of -8.10 was nearly the lowest level of the economic recovery. Consensus expectations had been for m/m [...]

The rebound in industrial sector output from Hurricane Sandy totaled 1.1% (2.5% y/y) last month following a deepened 0.7% October decline, last month reported as -0.4%. The Fed indicated that virtually all of last month's increase in [...]