Economy in Brief

What the Federal government gives, it can take away. And the removal of the $8,000 home-buyer tax credit wreaked more havoc on home sales last month. The Census Department indicated that July new home sales fell 12.4% to 276,000, [...]

By itself, a 0.3% gain in July durable goods orders might be an encouraging sign from the Commerce Department for factory sector growth. But several aspects of the report paint a dimmer picture of the U.S. manufacturing sector. 1) The [...]

Growth surprise in orders - Industrial orders in EMU surpassed expectations in June as May's 4% order surge was followed by a 2.5% gain in June. Still April saw a fall of 0.2% and that took the top off of the three-month growth rate [...]

Growth surprise in orders - Industrial orders in EMU surpassed expectations in June as May's 4% order surge was followed by a 2.5% gain in June. Still April saw a fall of 0.2% and that took the top off of the three-month growth rate [...]

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 [...]