Economy in Brief

According to the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), small business optimism slipped last month from May but the index level of 87.8 still was its highest level since last November. Optimism remained down 1.6% from [...]

The loss of forward momentum in the U.S. economy continued to weaken prices in the energy market. Yesterday, the cash market price for a gallon of regular gasoline fell to $1.60 versus the daily high of $2.04 reached in the middle of [...]

The economic recession may be restraining pricing power generally, but not last month. The PPI for finished goods jumped 1.8% after a 0.2% uptick during May. Consensus expectations had been for a 0.9% increase. The real news, however, [...]

Weak job growth and rising gasoline prices continued last month to constrain consumer spending. A 0.6% increase in June retail sales was near expectations and followed a little-revised 0.5% gain during May. However, except for a rise [...]

The U.S. government ran a budget deficit of $94.3 billion last month pulling the deficit during the first nine months of this fiscal year to $1.1 trillion. That compares to a deficit of $286 billion during the first nine months of [...]

The U.S. government ran a budget deficit of $94.3 billion last month pulling the deficit during the first nine months of this fiscal year to $1.1 trillion. That compares to a deficit of $286 billion during the first nine months of [...]

Japan’s consumer confidence is at a year and one half high. The government has upgraded its economic assessment for the third month in a row. Industrial output is on a tear. IP is up for three months in a row. The past two month’s [...]

Until the current recession started, the U.S. level of foreign trade (exports PLUS imports) was rising sharply with the expansion of the worldwide economy. As a percentage of overall U.S. economic activity, trade was just shy of 30% [...]