Economy in Brief

Despite the weakness in the job market, the consumer continues to visit shopping centers putting chain store sales on a firmer footing. According to the International Council of Shopping Centers-Goldman Sachs Index store sales rose [...]

Regular gasoline prices last week continued their recent rise and settled at $2.24 per gallon last week. That price was up 63 cents (39.1%) from the December low and it was the highest level since November. Yesterday, cash market [...]

In the UK overall MFG output is flat in March. Despite the fall, the output of durable consumer goods is up in March and its trend shows a diminishing pace of decline. Consumer nondurable output is up for three months in a row and [...]

Though higher oil prices raised the cost of petroleum imports during March, the lift just slightly deepened the U.S. foreign trade deficit and it remained near the lowest level since 1999. The deficit of $27.6B deepened from the [...]

Though higher oil prices raised the cost of petroleum imports during March, the lift just slightly deepened the U.S. foreign trade deficit and it remained near the lowest level since 1999. The deficit of $27.6B deepened from the [...]

On a seasonally adjusted basis, industrial production in France declined 1.4% from February to March; and, in Italy, 4.6.%. For the quarter industrial production in France was down 6.8% compared with 6.9% in the fourth quarter. The [...]

Expanding on last week's piece Louise Curley Curley on the Haver Analytics website, past deflation of pricing power has eased and may be tuning positive. By extension, U.S. economic improvement may be in the offing. What is unknown, of [...]

Taken in a rather broad perspective the downturn according to the OECD’s LEIs which are cyclically adjusted is quite severe; the worst since 1970, at least. But the US and several counties in OECD Europe are showing signs of doing [...]