Economy in Brief

A number of reports on consumer and business confidence were released today--four pertaining to the consumer for France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland and one pertaining to business for the Netherlands. In Switzerland, the latest [...]

The Conference Board reported that consumer confidence improved slightly this month but remained near the lowest level since February. The index of overall confidence rose 3.3% to 50.2 from a little-changed 48.6 in September. [...]

Home price gains lost forward momentum this summer. During August, the seasonally adjusted Case-Shiller 20-City Home Price Index fell 0.3%. It was the second month of decline and pulled the y/y gain down to 1.7% from 4.7% this past [...]

Euro-Area orders jumped by over 5% in August after a drop of 1.8% in July, restoring some sense of balance to the outlook for the Euro-Area itself. In July three of the four largest Euro-Area economies had seen orders drop by about 2% [...]

With the up coming summit meeting of the Group of 20 leading economies on November 11th and 12th in Seoul, Korea exchange rates will be high on the agenda. The finance ministers and central bankers of the 20 met in Gyeongju, Korea [...]

In another sign of weakness in the U.S. economy, the Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI) fell further last month to its lowest level since February. Moreover, it was near its lowest level of the economic recovery. The decline [...]

Price discounts seem to have buoyed home sales last month. The National Association of Realtors reported that sales of existing homes during September increased 10.0% to 4.53M following a little revised 7.3% August increase. September [...]

What every homeowner needs is something to sit on. But a poor job market can put off the day of purchasing that new item. During 2009 furniture sales, as reported by the U.S. Commerce Dept., fell 11% following declines during the [...]