Economy in Brief

The latest estimate of 1.7% (AR) growth in real Q2 GDP was little revised from last month's 1.6%. Moreover, it differed little from the Consensus expectation for an unchanged reading of 1.6%. It remained the fourth straight quarter of [...]

The EMU overall sentiment index rose in September to 103.4 from 103.1 keeping the European advance in play. Of the main five countries four saw increases in their confidence levels, Italy was the exception, but Spain's index rose [...]

The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that mortgage applications slipped 0.8% last week for the fourth consecutive down week. Nevertheless, overall applications remain up 20.7% September '09. Last week's total decline was led by [...]

Tracking gasoline prices this Summer required little more than a ruler as the pump price for regular gasoline moved sideways near last week's level of $2.69 per gallon. Prices remained down from $2.91 in early-May. Nevertheless, [...]

GFK goes its own way - The GFK survey of German Consumer Confidence rose sharply in its look-head assessment of October. The index rise to 4.9 from 4.3 was a stunner given the withering expectations for Germany. Although various [...]

PRICES: Daily prices of gold can be found in the Haver databases, DAILY and INTDAILY, weekly prices in the Haver databases, WEEKLY and INTWKLY, and monthly prices in USECON and IFS. The IFS database contains monthly data back to [...]

Consumers continued to hold back on their spending last week and for September as a whole. Weekly chain store sales last week gained back just 0.4% of the prior week's 1.4% decline. For September, average sales fell 0.9% from August [...]

The Conference Board reported that consumer confidence fell sharply last month to the lowest level since February. The index of overall confidence fell to 48.5 from a downwardly revised 53.2 in August. Moreover, the September level [...]