Economy in Brief

Improvement in the labor market has slowed. That's the message from the latest figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Initial claims for unemployment insurance slipped just 2,000 to 386,000 from an upwardly revised 388,000 [...]

Improvement in the labor market has slowed. That's the message from the latest figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Initial claims for unemployment insurance slipped just 2,000 to 386,000 from an upwardly revised 388,000 [...]

The trends in EMU show the 17 country Euro Area current account deficit swinging widely first to a surplus and now plunging to a deficit. It is no longer clear if there is an improving trend in train or not. Goods imports are out [...]

Lower interest rates finally prompted a gain in mortgage applications. The Mortgage Bankers Association for total mortgage applications rose 6.9% w/w to 725.4 (55.2% y/y). The increase raised applications to the highest level in five [...]

The results of the April ZEW survey for Germany were more up beat than had been anticipated. Among the 275 institutional investors and financial analysts who participated in the survey, the excess of optimists over pessimists [...]

Chain store sales declined 1.0% last week (+3.2% y/y) following two weeks of strong increase. During the last ten years there has been a 72% correlation between the y/y change in chain store sales and the change in retail sales at [...]

Pump prices for regular gasoline dipped last week to $3.92 per gallon but still were near their highest since last May. The current level is up sixty nine cents (22%) since year-end. Haver Analytics' seasonally-adjusted price for [...]

There's been no forward momentum recently in U.S. production activity. Industrial production was unchanged last month (3.8% y/y) following an unrevised no-change during February. The latest figure again disappointed Consensus [...]