Economy in Brief: January 2012

For the first time in six months, individuals made a meaningful effort to save rather spend a firm gain in income. The personal savings rate rose to 4.0% last month from an unrevised 3.5% in November. To be sure, it wasn't a great [...]

With The Conference Board's release yesterday of the December leading indicator index, they included a brand new measure of financial market forces, which they call the Leading Credit Index. In December, it rose 0.2%; it enters the [...]

Money supply in EMU is just moving sideways. The Yr/Yr rates of growth are fairly steady but the shorter-term sequential rates show a clear slowdown. Expressed in real terms, that is deflated by consumer prices, the money growth trend [...]

The University of Michigan's Index of Consumer Sentiment for the full month of January was 75.0, up from 74.0 at mid-month and from 69.9 in December. The latest figure was the highest since last February and better than Consensus [...]

Economic growth returned to its trend last quarter, but no more. In its advance estimate the Commerce Department indicated that Q4'11 real GDP grew at a 2.8% annual rate. Expectations had been for a 3.0% rise. The figure was improved [...]

The Conference Board's revised leading indicator index ("LEI") rose 0.4% in December, following 0.2% in November. For all of 2011, the index was up 2.8% December/December and 5.1% on average for the year over 2010. Despite the [...]

The GFK index of German consumer confidence gives hardly any notion of it being a country in the middle of a zone beset with real economic troubles. In the graphic, the GFK confidence line portrays a very steady ongoing upward rise [...]

The market for new homes remains under pressure. Total new home sales fell 2.2% last month to 307,000 (AR) and reversed the little-revised 2.3% November gain. Sales fell short of Consensus expectations for 320,000. Indeed, last year [...]