Economy in Brief

Unlike the modest uptick in the Philadelphia Fed's index, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported yesterday that its Empire State Factory Index of General Business Conditions fell to -8.82 in September. The number was weaker [...]

UK retail sales were flat in August. While three-month sales growth rates showed some life, UK retail sales have all the earmarks of a sector with not much going on. UK inflation remains stubborn with the HICP up by 4.5% Yr/Yr in [...]

The Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank's index of regional factory sector for September recovered a piece of its August deterioration. Today's Philadelphia Fed General Activity index rose to -17.5 from an unrevised -30.7 in August. The [...]

U.S. industrial production inched up 0.1% last month following a 1.0% July gain, originally reported as 0.9%. The latest increase matched Consensus expectations, according to Action Economics. Factory sector output gained 0.4% as [...]

Job market improvement is no more. Initial claims for unemployment insurance jumped to 428,000 last week from 417,000 during the week prior (revised from 414,000). The latest figure was the highest since the last week of June and it [...]

Price inflation held at an elevated rate last month. The overall CPI gained 0.4% following July's 0.5% rise. A 0.2% increase was expected. Despite the August surprise, the three-month gain in prices was a moderate 2.6% (AR), down [...]

Strong rise in Euro-Area output : what’s up with that? Euro-Area IP ramped up sharply in July, a surprising development. Even so the three-month rate of growth is negative. But at -0.2% it is vastly improved from the three-month [...]

The U.S. Commerce Department reported that business inventory growth held steady in July at 0.4%. Business sales increased 0.7% and were slightly stronger than June. With the moderate inventory growth, the inventory/sales ratio [...]