Economy in Brief

Belgian business leaders appear to be shrugging off warnings of an economic slow down. They have expressed more confidence in the economic outlook over the last two months. The National Bank of Belgium's confidence indicator rose from [...]

Consumers showed less spending restraint last week after a pullback from July's largess. Weekly chain store sales nudged up 0.2% but that still left sales off 1.4% from the July high. So far this month, sales are down 0.5% from the [...]

As recent news of a softening U.S. economy emerged it helped pull energy prices lower. The pump price for regular gasoline moved four cents lower last week to $2.70 per gallon after a like decline the week earlier. Prices remained [...]

Sales of existing homes showed the full effect last month of the expiration of the Federal home-buyer tax credit. July sales of existing homes collapsed 27.2% to 3.83M following modest declines during the prior two months, according [...]

Today's news out of the Euro-Area continues to be relatively favorable. Although the Purchasing Mangers Survey of conditions in the Euro-Area showed small declines in the composite, manufacturing and service indexes, the indexes [...]

Earlier improvement in service-sector hiring ran out of gas during the last few months. If it weren't so widespread, the slowdown wouldn't be too noteworthy. But the fact that it's reached into sectors which normally are resistant to [...]

By returning to a level of zero, the July National Activity Index (CFNAI), reported by the Chicago Fed, recovered most of its June decline. However, lest the rise to 0.00 spark too much excitement about economic growth, the three- [...]

Disappointingly, the Philadelphia Fed's monthly business outlook survey turned negative for this month. The general activity index was -7.7% compared with July's +5.1%. It was the first negative reading since July 2009. The weakness [...]