Economy in Brief

The UK CBI survey showed backing off continues in the trend for new orders. Exports from EMU also have been weakening. Germany reported weaker IP and weaker new industrial orders. Germany’s Zew index has seen expectations back off [...]

The August producer price index for finished goods turned in its strongest gain since March with a 0.4% increase following a 0.2% July rise. Nevertheless, the y/y increase eased to 3.0% since the comparison was to strong gains this [...]

Last month's modest 0.2% gain in industrial production suffered from lower output of motor vehicles and matched Consensus expectations. However, overall forward momentum has lagged of late. The latest increase followed a downwardly [...]

U.S. import prices during August posted their largest one-month increase since April. The 0.6% gain followed a modest 0.1% July uptick that was revised from 0.2%. Consensus expectations had been for a 0.2% gain during last month. A [...]

Overall inflation ticked up to 0.4% (m/m) in August. But trends remain very much subdued in the Zone. Core inflation rose by 0.2% in August and by 0.1% in July. Broader trends signal no damage. Three month headline inflation descended [...]

Inventory management continues to turn towards accumulation. Total business inventories rose 1.0% during July following an upwardly revised 0.5% gain during June, changed from 0.3%. A 0.6% gain had been expected. As mentioned by [...]

Pessimists concerning the outlook for the next six months among German institutional investors and analysts now outnumber optimists for the first time since March of 2009. In September the ZEW indicator fell to -4.3% from 14.0% in [...]

Consumers are getting back on their feet. Retail spending rose last month by 0.4% following a little-revised 0.3% July increase. The last was slightly greater-than-expectations for a 0.3% increase and came despite a 0.7% drop in [...]