Economy in Brief

The home builders index took a step back in August as all components of the index fell, except traffic that held steady. Across regions the indices also fell with the Midwest being stable month-to-month and the Northeast taking the [...]

For the third time since December 2008 the seasonally unadjusted nominal gross domestic product of China has exceeded that of Japan as can be seen in the first chart. In the second quarter of this year, China reported GDP at $1337 [...]

Foreign participation in U.S. capital markets was relatively modest in June, according to the monthly "TIC" data reported this morning from the U.S. Treasury. Foreign investors were net purchasers of $33.9 billion in long-term [...]

Business inventories continued a halting recovery in June. All together, they rose 0.3%, and May's increase was revised from 0.1% to 0.2%. As visible in the first graph, this hardly constitutes a "recovery" from their total decline [...]

Consumers recovered slightly this month from their gloomy state during July, but not by much. The mid-month August reading of consumer sentiment, as measured by the University of Michigan, recovered a quarter of the July drop with an [...]

As spending on motor vehicles changes, so too does spending on gasoline. That probably overstates the case, but last month an expected 0.4% increase in total retail sales was driven by a 1.6% increase in motor vehicles and a 2.3% gain [...]

Europe surges - EMU GDP is advancing at a super-strong 3.9% rate (Saar) in Q2 leaving the US growth rate of 2.4% (and due to be revised lower...) in the dust. But at 3.2% the US Yr/Yr rate still towers over the EMU rate of 1.7%. But [...]

Not-with-standing a moderate blip in energy prices, consumer price inflation remained under control last month. The July Consumer Price Index increased 0.3% (1.3% y/y) following three consecutive months of slight decline. During the [...]