Economy in Brief

Chain store sales fell 0.7% last week following a like decline the week earlier. That left sales so far this month down 1.0% from the May average. During the last ten years there has been a 66% correlation between the y/y change in [...]

Last week, the pump price for regular gasoline fell six cents to $3.65 per gallon. Since last month's peak, prices have fallen 31 cents but remain up one-third versus last year. Pump prices usually start rising this time of year with [...]

Recent evidence suggests that the Japanese recovery from the disastrous March earthquake and tsunami is likely to be slower than originally thought due in large part to the problems at the nuclear plants. Japan's trade balance for [...]

Foreign investors purchased $44.8 billion worth of U.S. long-term debt and equity securities in April, according the U.S. Treasury's International Capital ("TIC") data, which were published Wednesday. This followed $54.7 billion worth [...]

Euro-Area trade flows have lost some momentum, but the Zone-wide deficit continues to get larger. Import growth exceeds export growth over 12-months and 6-months but has given ground over 3-months. Still it’s not enough time to tell [...]

The Conference Board reported that its Leading Economic Indicators index rose 0.8% last month following a 0.4% April decline, initially reported as -0.3%. Consensus expectations were for a 0.2% rise in May. Despite the latest [...]

Reported yesterday, the U.S. current account deficit rose in Q1 to $119.3B from a revised $112.2B in Q1 as the gain in imports beat exports. Consensus expectations were for $128.0B. The ratio to GDP was 3.2%, the same as for all of [...]

While headline Zone inflation hits 0% in May and the core edged up by just 0.1% the trends continue to point higher. What is really going on with inflation will play out over the coming months. Since commodity prices have broken their [...]