Economy in Brief

Consumers just aren't in a buying mood. Last week, chain store sales recovered the prior week's decline and that sideways movement emphasizes the sales weakness since July. Since then sales have fallen 2.3%. During the last ten years [...]

The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that mortgage applications surged by 14.6% last week to the highest level since May 2009. Last week's total increase was led by a 21.0% w/w jump in applications to refinance a mortgage. They [...]

Euro-Area IP jumped in August. The 0.9% rise in MFG output follows a slide of 0.3% and drop of 0.2%. Those are the fist consecutive drops in IP for the Zone Since April of 2009. Through thick and through thin in this recovery one fact [...]

A back-slide in oil prices lowered U.S. import prices during September. The 0.3% overall decline reversed half of the 0.6% August increase and left prices up 3.5% y/y. Consensus expectations had been for a 0.2% decline during last [...]

Consumer confidence in Japan slipped in September for the third month in a row. It is back at its level of April this year. Confidence ranks in the lower 40% of its long term range. Willingness to buy durable goods stands in the lower [...]

As noted in the September 2010 HAVER ANALYTICS NEWS, Haver Analytics has added a new data base, EQUITIES. The new database offers data on the capital markets of 78 countries. In addition to major price indexes, the database includes [...]

Small businesses see little to improve their sense of well being about the U.S. economy. The National Federation of Independent Business indicated that their index of small business optimism inched up to 89.0 last month from 88.8 in [...]

Industrial production data for August and, in some cases, September, have recently been released for a number of countries. Today, data for two developed economies--France and Italy--and two developing economies--Indonesia and [...]