Economy in Brief: 2015

U.K. retail sales surged in September, rising by 1.4% after a 0.8% August decline. Clothing and footwear sales remained weak in August as they fell by 1.8%, their second fall in three months. Food and beverage spending rose by 2.3% in [...]

Initial claims for unemployment insurance notched higher during the week ended October 15 to 259,000 from 256,000 during the prior week, revised from 255,000. The figure remained near the November 1973 low. The Action Economics [...]

The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that its total Mortgage Market Volume Index rose 11.8% (-5.9%) following two weeks of extreme volatility. During those weeks, applications first rose by one-quarter then fell by a like amount. [...]

Japan's goods exports and imports fell in September with imports falling faster thereby shrinking the trade deficit. Export trends show nominal exports weak on all horizons of one year and less, and declining on balance over six [...]

Gasoline prices at the pump declined last week to $2.28 per gallon (-27.0% y/y), the lowest level since mid-February. Haver Analytics constructs factors adjusting for the seasonal variation in pump prices. The seasonally adjusted [...]

The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia reported that its Index of Nonmanufacturing Sector Activity at the company level rose to 37.5, the highest level since June. Nevertheless, the reading remained below the year-ago level for the [...]

Housing starts during September increased 6.0% to 1.206 million (AR) from 1.132 million in August, last month reported as 1.126 million. During all of the third quarter, starts inched 0.5% higher versus Q2. The latest figure surpassed [...]

The EMU trade surplus contracted sharply in August, falling by 2.5 billion euros month-to-month. Still, the surplus is smartly higher year-over-year. Both exports and imports are losing momentum (see chart). In August, exports fell by [...]