Economy in Brief

The EMU and EU overall sentiment indices fell this month. All of the countries pictured saw their indices fall in the financial crisis/recession. All saw a strong initial recovery. Spain’s recovery topped out first, then Italy’s. [...]

Economic growth of 3.0% (SAAR) last quarter was unrevised, as expected, in the Commerce Department's 3rd estimate. Growth remained the firmest since Q2'10. Despite this slight improvement, annualized corporate profit growth amounted [...]

The job market continued to firm last week. Initial claims for unemployment insurance fell 5,000 to 359,000 during the week ended March 24 from an upwardly revised 364,000 in the previous week. The latest figure was the lowest since [...]

Italy’s retail sales volume picked up in January rising by 0.5% after a long period of weakness. If we look at monthly retail sales volumes, we have to go back to January of 2007 to find a prior 12-month period in which sales volumes [...]

More of a depressing effect on mortgage loan applications from higher interest rates was evident last week. The index of total mortgage applications fell 2.7% to 663.7 (+36.8% y/y), down for the seventh straight week. Fewer [...]

New orders for durable goods rebounded 2.2% during February following a 3.6% January slump, originally reported as -4.0%. Consensus expectations had been for a 2.7% rise. The increase was roughly consistent with the ISM orders figure [...]

A number of surveys relating to consumer confidence were released today. Consumers in Finland, France and Germany in Europe and in Korea in Asia showed some signs of increasing their propensities to consume in March. The latest data [...]

The Conference Board's Index of Consumer Confidence fell in March to 70.2 from a revised 71.6, last month reported as 70.8. The latest two figures were the highest since last February and were up nearly three-quarters from the October [...]