Economy in Brief

While there seems to be more anxiety about the Euro-Area it is far from clear what is going on. Orders trends for Italy and France are undergoing a major divergence. Orders for Italy in April are falling and are lower over three [...]

Mass layoffs in the U.S. during May fell slightly following a sharp April increase. The Labor Department reported this morning that layoffs of 50 or more persons from a single firm slipped a seasonally adjusted 0.6% to 1,380 following [...]

Consumers showed a further disinclination to spend freely last week. Chain store sales were essentially unchanged w/w (3.6% y/y) and remained at the lowest level in two months. Sales in June are 3.9% below the high April average. [...]

The 274 German financial analysts and institutional investors who participated in the ZEW survey that took place during the period from May 29 to June 18 greatly reduced their expectations of German macroeconomic conditions in the six [...]

The rate of labor market improvement eased during April. The Bureau of Labor Statistics indicated in its Job Openings & Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) that the rate of 2.5% was down from the March high of 2.7%. Nevertheless, the latest [...]

Last week, the pump price of regular gasoline declined another four cents to $3.53 per gallon. Since early April prices have fallen forty one cents (-10.4%) and they've retraced nearly three-quarters of the run-up early this year. [...]

Last month, housing starts fell 4.8% to 708,000. The figure disappointed expectations for 725,000 starts. However, the picture for home building activity may have nevertheless brightened. The April level of starts was revised up to [...]

While Greek and Egyptian election news takes center stage these days, it is important not to lose sight of the wealth of economic data released each day. Among today's releases are data on Belgium's consumer confidence and [...]