Economy in Brief

Regular gasoline prices last week moved higher to $2.08 per gallon, up 47 cents from the December low. Yesterday, prices moved higher still. The spot market price for a gallon of unleaded gasoline reached $1.52 on Monday, up from [...]

Europe’s PMI readings bounced sharply in April across EMU nations. France made the second largest monthly rise at 3.59 points just above the UK’s 3.35 point gain. From its cycle low, the UK has made the greatest gain rising by 8 [...]

Manufacturing activity around the world appears to have stopped contracting.Markit Economics reported today that the diffusion indexes representing the opinions of purchasing managers in manufacturing in a number of countries have [...]

Regrettably, recent gains in the value of construction spending have been limited, small and tenuous. The value of construction put-in-place unexpectedly increased 0.3% during March following five consecutive months of decline in [...]

For March, the National Association of Realtors reported that pending sales of existing homes rose another 3.2% following their little revised 2.0% gain during February. While surprising, the gains failed to recoup a sharp 7.7% [...]

What lift may have been evident in sales of light vehicles dissolved with the report that sales in April fell, despite a new round of price discounts. U.S. unit sales of light vehicles reversed most of a March gain with a 5.5% m/m [...]

For March, the National Association of Realtors reported that pending sales of existing homes rose another 3.2% following their little revised 2.0% gain during February. While surprising, the gains failed to recoup a sharp 7.7% [...]

During March, the manufacturing sector continued to shed inventories at near a record rate. The 0.8% decline followed a revised 1.3% cutback during February. During the last three months the 12.1% annualized rate of stock-pile [...]