Economy in Brief: 2016

The Chicago Purchasing Managers Business Barometer Index decreased to 54.6 in December following a jump to 57.6 during November. The December figure compared to expectations for a smaller drop to 56.5 in the Action Economics Forecast [...]

Spain offers a very early read on inflation in December. The headlines of the HICP and CPI show a spurt in progress with a nearly 1% gain (0.8% and 0.9%, respectively) in the HICP and CPI readings in the month of December alone. These [...]

Initial claims for unemployment insurance eased to 265,000 (-7.0% y/y) in the week ended December 24 following an unrevised increase to 275,000 in the December 17 week. Expectations in the Action Economics Forecast Survey also showed [...]

Money supply growth in the EMU and globally is still on trend or weaker. The lone exception here is a three-month pick-up in Japan's nominal monetary growth that is not reflected by a speed up in real money balances. But credit in the [...]

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported that pending home sales fell 2.5% m/m (-0.4% y/y) in November after having edged up only 0.1% (not revised) in October. These sales are reported as an index with 2001=100. The [...]

Italian consumer confidence jumped to an index reading of 111.1 in December from 108.1 in November. The confidence index which had peaked in this cycle in November 2015 had been in a steady slide and had fallen or been flat in seven [...]

Japan continues to see weak prices in train. Even in a global environment where inflation trends are weak, Japan's trend is still weaker than trends for other major competitors. As much as the bank of Japan has tried to pump up [...]

U.S. consumers are feeling a lot more optimistic about the future in December, according to The Conference Board Index of Consumer Confidence. It reported that its headline consumer confidence index for December jumped up to 113.7, [...]