Economy in Brief: November 2019

Manufacturers' orders for durable goods unexpectedly rose 0.6% m/m (-0.7% y/y) in October following a downwardly revised 1.4% m/m decline in September. The Action Economics Forecast Survey had anticipated a 0.7% m/m decline for [...]

Initial claims for unemployment insurance declined 15,000 to 213,000 (-9.0% year-on-year) during the week ending November 23. The previous week was revised slightly higher to 228,000 (was 227,000). The late Thanksgiving holiday may [...]

The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index for November eased 0.5% (-8.0% y/y) to 125.5 after a little-revised 0.2% October decline. It was the fifth decline in the last six months and left the confidence level 9.1% below its [...]

Sales of new single-family homes slipped 0.7% m/m (+31.6% y/y) in October to 733,000 units SAAR. However, the 0.7% m/m decline to 701,000 initially reported for September was revised up significantly to a 4.5% m/m rise to 738,000 [...]

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Price Index increased 0.6% in September, following an unrevised 0.2% August increase. During the last twelve months, home prices improved 5.1%, a deceleration from last year's 6.7% full-year [...]

Retail gasoline prices eased to $2.58 per gallon last week (+1.6% y/y) from $2.59 in the previous week. Prices typically weaken this time of year. Haver Analytics constructs factors to adjust for the seasonal variation in gasoline [...]

The behavior of the U.S. economy so far in 2019 reminds me of its behavior in 1967. The pace of U.S. economy activity slipped significantly in early 1967, but an “official” recession was narrowly avoided thanks to some timely easing [...]

The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas reported in its Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey that the General Business Activity Index of -1.3 during November compares to October's -5.1. It remained down sharply from the February 2018 high of [...]