Economy in Brief: 2020

ZEW experts cut their expectations for Germany by 21.3 points in October. They slashed them by 16.9 points in the United States. They lopped 21.8 points off the outlook in Japan. The French outlook is weaker by 22 points in October. [...]

• NFIB Small Business Optimism Index increases sharply. • Strengthen occurs across the board, including hiring and pricing. The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) Small Business Optimism Index increased to 104.0 in [...]

• Core goods remain firm. • Services prices are little changed. Retail pricing power weakened further last month. The Consumer Price Index increased 0.2% (1.4% y/y) during September following a 0.4% August rise and a 0.6% gain in [...]

• Recent declines are broad-based. • Crude oil costs rise. The Industrial Materials Price Index from the Foundation for International Business and Economic Research (FIBER) eased 1.3% during the last four weeks. Despite the decline, [...]

• Wholesale inventory gain follows three straight months of decline. • Sales continue on upward path for fourth consecutive month. • Inventory-to-sales ratio falls again. Wholesale inventories increased 0.4% during August (-5.2% y/y) [...]

Europe is recovering, but recovery is slowing. In August, 7 of 12 early reporting EMU economies showed increases in industrial production. However, the exceptions were significant as they included two of the four largest EMU [...]

• Housing affordability decreased in August for the fourth consecutive month. • Falling incomes and rising home prices offset record low mortgage interest rates. The National Association of Realtors reported that its Fixed Rate [...]

• Initial claims in state programs fell to lowest level since second week of March. • PUA program initial claims fell further. • The insured unemployment rate fell to 7.5%, lowest level since late-March. Initial claims for [...]