Economy in Brief

After falling sharply into last autumn, the U.S. foreign trade deficit has bounced within a narrow range during the last four months. For February, the deficit deepened to $39.7B from a little-revised $37.0B during January. The latest [...]

The Business Cycle Dating Committee at the National Bureau of Economic Research indicated that it's premature to call an end to the U.S. recession. Their latest communiqué can be found here. Nevertheless, Haver Analytics has gone [...]

Five countries--Italy, Ireland, India, Kazakhstan and Mexico--reported February data on industrial production today. One, Kazakhstan reported data for March. We have put the various indexes on a common basis, 2003=100, so that growth [...]

History tells us that gains this strong do not continue to accelerate like this for very long. Already the sequential growth rates are showing that the pace of growth is beginning to ebb even though the 12-month rates continue to [...]

History tells us that gains this strong do not continue to accelerate like this for very long. Already the sequential growth rates are showing that the pace of growth is beginning to ebb even though the 12-month rates continue to [...]

UK MFG inflation trends are still running hot with the release of the PPI for March. Commodity prices are still rising, adding to the pressure with Brent prices up by 7% in the March and other commodity prices rising as well. Coupled [...]

The U.S. unemployment rate has lingered near 10% since last summer. As if that's not bad enough news, the detail behind the total paints a picture of an even graver economic situation. The current range of the unemployment rate is [...]

The U.S. unemployment rate has lingered near 10% since last summer. As if that's not bad enough news, the detail behind the total paints a picture of an even graver economic situation. The current range of the unemployment rate is [...]