Economy in Brief

In its latest National Employment Report, the payroll processor Automatic Data Processing (ADP) and economic consultants Macroeconomic Advisers, indicated that the April level of private nonfarm payrolls rose 179,000 after a 207,000 [...]

Unit sales of light vehicles recovered just 0.5% during April to 13.17M units (SAAR) after the 2.4% decline in March. The Consensus expectation was for sales of 13.0M, according to the Bloomberg survey. (Seasonal adjustment of these [...]

The UK MFG index fell unexpectedly in April. The index is on a seven month low. It is still 'strong' sitting at the 81st percentile of its high-low range. The construction and services indices lag and are not yet in for April. The [...]

Inflation expectations have been added to the Haver Data Base, EMERGEPR for South Korea and India. The South Korea data include monthly data, starting in February 2002 on the average expected inflation rate over the next twelve [...]

Factory sector activity recovered during March. Manufacturing orders jumped 3.0% after a 0.7% February gain that was revised up from a 0.1% slip reported earlier. For durable goods only, orders rose 2.9%, revised from the 2.5% [...]

Reported Friday was a hefty 0.6% gain in March disposable personal income. As we noted then, the strength of the nominal increase was limited to an outsized 2.7% rise in rental income, the third consecutive monthly such gain. Wage and [...]

There's been no let-up of the upward pressure on energy prices. Last week, the pump price for regular gasoline rose to $3.96 per gallon, the highest level since July, 2008. Typically, pump prices decline this time of year due to [...]

The Purchasing Managers Index for manufacturing in the Euro Area recovered in April some of the momentum lost in March. Although the index declined in March it remained in the expansion zone, that is over 50%. The index increased in [...]