Economy in Brief: 2019

The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that its Mortgage Loan Index declined 11.9% (+53.6% y/y) during the week ending October 18, following a 0.5% improvement in the previous week. Applications to refinance a loan plunged 17.1% [...]

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Price Index increased 0.2% in August, following an unrevised 0.4% increase in July. During the last twelve months, home prices improved 4.6%, the weakest growth since late 2014. That growth [...]

The Brexit process has been taking a toll on the performance of industrial orders in the United Kingdom. But the situation is only getting progressively worse and the worsening is becoming more extreme. Net orders fell to a -37 [...]

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported that sales of existing homes fell 2.2% (+3.9% y/y) during September to 5.380 million from 5.50 million in August, revised from 5.490 million. The Action Economics Forecast Survey [...]

The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia reported that its Nonmanufacturing Business Index of current conditions at the company level fell to 8.7 during October after declining to 29.4 in September. Nevertheless, the index of expected [...]

In the week ended October 21, the U.S. pump price for gasoline of $2.64 per gallon (-7.1% y/y) compared to $2.63 during the previous week. Haver Analytics adjusts these price figures for seasonal variation. The seasonally-adjusted [...]

Japan's trade data showed a gain in both exports and imports in September, but both flows are contracting year-over-year. However, there is a lot of price weakness because of weak energy prices and in real terms year-on-year exports [...]

The Industrial Materials Price Index from the Foundation for International Business and Economic Research (FIBER) declined 0.7% during the last four weeks. An uptick last week was part of an irregular sideways path in place since [...]