Economy in Brief

Japan’s Tankan reading has risen from its recession lows and the outlook is up in Q3. While the rebound is the firm for large companies it is progressively more guarded as the size of the enterprise surveyed geos down. But the actual [...]

Downward momentum in factory sector activity stabilized last month. The Institute for Supply Management reported that its September Composite Index of factory sector activity rose slightly to 51.6 from an unrevised 50.6 in August. [...]

Volatility has been great in the monthly construction put-in-place figures, but there has been some trend improvement. During August, activity rose 1.4% after a little-revised 1.4% July decline. The monthly rise lifted activity 4.8% [...]

German retail sales took a sharp turn lower in August. Vehicle registrations were lower as well. Real retail sales excluding autos fell sharply in August as well. Nominal retail ex-auto sales are actually on a modest accelerating [...]

The University of Michigan's Index of Consumer Sentiment for all of September rose to 59.4. That's versus its mid-September reading of 57.8 and versus August of 55.7. Regardless, that gain still left the Q3 average down sharply at [...]

A one-month decline and a trend slowdown characterize the recent behavior of personal income. It fell 0.1% during August following a revised 0.1% July uptick, initially reported as 0.3%. A 0.1% gain was expected. Disposable income [...]

Real GDP growth was revised back up to 1.3% (SAAR) from the 1.0% reported a month ago. The change was powered by a higher estimate of growth in domestic final sales. Consensus estimates had called for GDP growth of 1.2%. The upward [...]

The decline in the Euro-Area is quite plain and clear for all to see. The graph above plots index levels and shows how even those (like Germany) with a strong recover yare falling fast. Spain, the weak economy on the chart also shows [...]