Economy in Brief

The German IFO index showed a weaker climate reading in April. Both the topical IFO and the lagging EMU index for Germany are showing a damping down for the overall climate index (see chart). The Manufacturing index which is stronger [...]

Initial claims for jobless insurance fell last week to 403,000 from 416,00 during the week prior, initially reported as 412,000. The latest figure exceeded Consensus expectations for 395,000 claims and remained near the highest in [...]

Some improvement in the housing market is apparent in the mortgage applications data. The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that overall mortgage applications rose 5.3% last week for the first gain in four weeks. Applications to [...]

The National Association of Realtors reported that sales of existing homes rose during March to 5.100M (AR) from a February level of 4.920M, revised from 4.880M. The last was slightly higher than Consensus expectations for 5.00M sales [...]

The German PPI lost some zing in March as it rose by 0.3% after a burning hot January and February with gains of 1.1% and 0.7%, respectively. The sequential growth rates still indicate a charging-up of inflation as 3-mo inflation [...]

April has been a strong month for retail sales. Last week, chain stores alone recorded a 0.3% w/w increase to another record high. For the month so far sales have risen 2.6% from March after that month's 3.0% increase. During the last [...]

No need to tell drivers that it's more expensive to hit the road. Last week, the pump price for regular gasoline rose another nickel to $3.84 per gallon, the highest level since August, 2008. The gain has been from the December low [...]

Canada offers various measures of inflation but they all agree that the rate of inflation is on the rise. Inflation accelerated across most categories in February and did it again in March. Yet inflation is not broadly higher over [...]