Economy in Brief

Good news often doesn't last forever. Reversing earlier declines, the pump price for regular gasoline rose four cents last week to $3.68 per gallon, its highest in a month. Nevertheless, prices remained down twenty eight cents since [...]

New residential building activity just can't break out to the upside. Housing starts rose 14.6% last month to 629,000 (AR) following a downwardly revised no change in May. Despite the increase, however, the lift only made up for [...]

The National Association For Business Economics (NABE) today released its latest Industry Survey. It paints a picture of continued recovery in the U.S. economy. First, though the unit demand figure for Q2 slipped versus Q1, the level [...]

The National Association of Home Builders reported that its July index of housing market activity inched up to 15 versus an unrevised 13 in June. Though the latest figure remained above the all-time low of 8 reached in January of [...]

The table below shows the rise in various national HICP indices since the Euro was launched in January of 1999. We show the average inflation rate by country and also present the aggregate rise in each headline HICP. Interestingly, [...]

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported that its Empire State Factory Index of General Business Conditions improved to -3.76. The figure again indicated negative growth in overall conditions but an easing of the rate decline. [...]

Following two months of slight decline, U.S. industrial production rose all of 0.2% last month. Earlier months' figures were revised down slightly. The latest figure was weaker than Consensus expectations for a 0.3% gain according to [...]

The inflation picture brightened slightly last month. The overall CPI declined 0.2%, the first decline in twelve months. The drop compared to Consensus expectations for a 0.1% slip. On a three-month basis prices rose at a moderated [...]