Economy in Brief

It's been a disappointing tale for the reports of U.S. real GDP growth since the current recovery began. The advance figure for 2Q showed growth of 2.4%, which was slightly below expectations for 2.7%. It was the fourth straight [...]

Italy: still rebounding - Business confidence in Italy continues to rebound even as some have an eye on Italy as one of THOSE countries with too much debt and one that could be in trouble. Ever since the Greek crisis broke the Euro- [...]

It was another humdrum indication of an uninspiring labor market. Initial claims for jobless insurance ticked lower last week to 457,000 from 468,000 the prior week, revised from 464,000. The four-week moving average of initial claims [...]

While money supplies have speeded up a bit over three months compared to six months there is no great monetary stimulus in the offing. In the UK there is a set back. Despite all the concerns about the huge excess bank reserves in the [...]

The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that mortgage applications fell 4.4% last week and reversed roughly half of the prior week's gain. Nevertheless, for July overall applications rose 15.0% from June and by nearly one-half from [...]

For June, weakness in durable goods orders was widespread. The advance figures from the Commerce Department indicated a 1.0% decline in orders overall, similar to May's 0.8% drop which was slightly shallower than reported initially. [...]

The GfK group, a market research company headquartered in Nuremberg Germany, released data from its July survey of the German consumer today. Based on the opinions of some 2000 individuals, GfK found a marked improvement in the German [...]

The Conference Board indicated that consumer confidence continued its recent decline this month. Their consumer confidence index fell 7.2% m/m to 50.4 following a 13.4% June decline that was slightly less than reported initially. The [...]