Economy in Brief

Last week, the pump price for regular gasoline rose another penny to $3.97 per gallon, the highest level since July, 2008. Typically, however, pump prices start rising this time of year in anticipation of increased seasonal demand. To [...]

Germany's exports of goods rose 7.3% from 84.7 billion euros in February to 90.9 billion euros in March. The rise in imports was smaller, 3.0% from 73.46 billion euros to 75.7 billion euros in March, resulting in an increase of 3.96 [...]

The OECD's Leading Economic Indices show that the US and the OECD area each indicate that expansion is continuing. The LEIs plummeted in recession, rebounded strongly to signal recovery then dipped back to zero for both the US and for [...]

The recent recovery in consumer spending has been accompanied by a combination of strengthened use of non-revolving credit and less use of revolving usage. Reported Friday, overall consumer credit rose $6.0B during March following a [...]

April brought increased buying activity at chain stores. Reported Wednesday was a 0.8% (+2.8% y/y) slip in chain store sales last week, but that still left sales for the month as a whole up 2.7% m/m after a 3.0% gain during March. [...]

For most German sectors year-over-year growth in industrial output (or IP) has turned only slightly lower. Yet, over three months IP has accelerated overall led by consumer goods, a sector that has been late to the party. Capital [...]

Nonfarm payrolls increased 244,000 last month after a 221,000 March gain, initially reported as 216,000. The February rise also was revised up to 235,000 from 194,000. The latest gain exceeded Consensus expectations for a 185,000 [...]

April brought increased buying activity at chain stores. Reported Wednesday was a 0.8% (+2.8% y/y) slip in chain store sales last week, but that still left sales for the month as a whole up 2.7% m/m after a 3.0% gain during March. [...]