Economy in Brief

The total index of mortgage applications fell 4.9% last week to 601.0 (March 16, 1990 = 100). The decline was due to a 6.3% drop in applications to refinance, down for the third straight week. Applications to purchase a home nudged up [...]

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in its Job Openings & Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) that the July job openings rate held steady m/m at 2.4%. The latest reading remained improved versus the recession low of 1.6%. The job [...]

Industrial output in Germany rose by a sharp 4% in July after falling by 1% in June. With consumer goods slackening their pace over three-months capital goods output is ramping up over all horizons. Capital goods orders surged by 7.5% [...]

Consumer spending has lost forward momentum. Chain store sales fell 0.7% last week and were down 1.5% from the August average. Sales fell 1.8% during August but remained up 2.7% y/y. During the last ten years there has been a 66% [...]

The pump price for regular gasoline rose another four cents last week to $3.67 per gallon. Nevertheless, prices remained down twenty-nine cents since the May peak. Pump prices usually rise this time of year with increased seasonal [...]

German orders fell by 2.8% after two months of rising and were weaker than had been expected in July. Year-over-year orders are up by 8.7% on roughly similar growth for domestic-sourced orders and foreign orders, but after that the [...]

Purchasing Managers in the Service Industry in the Euro Area continue to downgrade their prospects. The Final Estimate for the August diffusion index representing their views was 51.4840, compared with 51.5776 for July. It was also [...]

The August Composite Index for the service and construction sectors from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) rose to 53.3 from an unrevised 52.7 during July. The figure beat Consensus expectations for a further decline to 51.0. [...]