Economy in Brief: February 2017

The Chicago Purchasing Managers Business Barometer Index recovered to 57.4 in February after a decline to 50.3 in January. The latest figure was the highest since January 2015. The February reading exceeded expectations for 53.0 in [...]

The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index for February jumped to 114.8, the highest level since July 2001. The Action Economics Forecast Survey had looked for a modest decline to 111.0. During the past thirty years, there has [...]

GDP growth and the theory of relativity GDP growth in the EMU, the U.K. and the U.S. is hardly knocking anyone's socks off. But what has been happening is that GDP has become remarkably free of worryingly weak results. Of course, in [...]

Estimates of economic performance last quarter were little changed from the advanced estimates. Growth of 1.9% in Q4'16 gross domestic product equaled the estimate issued last month; it followed a 3.5% gain in Q3. During all of last [...]

The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas indicated in its Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey that the General Business Activity Index increased to 24.5 during February, the strongest reading since April 2006. Improved readings for [...]

A nice step up in growth for Europe continues The EU and EMU indexes compiled by the EU Commission show gains in February but small gains. After a period of deceleration dating from mid-2015, the EMU area and its largest economies [...]

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported that pending home sales declined by 2.8% in January to an index level of 106.4. The index, which is reported on a 2001 = 100 basis, had hovered in a range near 109 for the past year [...]

Durable goods orders increased by 1.8% in January (-0.6% y/y), following a revised 0.8% decline in December. The January rise was close to the Action Economics forecast survey median of 1.6%. Although the headline orders figure [...]