Economy in Brief: February 2017

Confidence measures 'go their own way' but wind up in the same place In February, Italian consumer confidence trolled a five-month low while business confidence perked up. At the end of the day, both confidence indexes sit in their [...]

Sales of new single-family homes rebounded in January, rising 3.7% m/m to 555,000 units, seasonally adjusted at an annual rate. The sharp 10.4% m/m drop in December was revised up to a 7.0% m/m decline (575,000 units), but this was [...]

Initial claims for unemployment insurance increased to 244,000 (-7.6% y/y) during the week ended February 18 from 238,000 claims in the week prior, revised from 239,000. Expectations had been for 240,000 claims in the Action Economics [...]

Despite a coming setback to German confidence in March, the GfK look-ahead confidence reading remains strong and is barely off that index's best of all-time levels. There have been three episodes in which the GfK reading has attained [...]

The Federal Housing Finance Agency's (FHFA) index of U.S. house prices rose 6.2% during all of 2016 following a 5.7% increase in 2015, and a 5.4% gain during 2014. These increases were down somewhat from the 7.3% rise in 2013, yet [...]

The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that its total Mortgage Market Volume Index fell 2.0% last week (-28.8% y/y) following a 3.7% decline during the week prior. Purchase applications were off 2.8% (-0.5% y/y) after a 4.5% fall. [...]

Regular gasoline prices of $2.30 per gallon (+33.1% y/y) last week were down a penny from the prior week. The February average of $2.30 compared to $2.35 per gallon in January. Prices were lower than the 2014 high of $3.71 per gallon. [...]

Sales of existing single-family homes increased 3.3% (3.8% y/y) to 5.690 million units (AR) during January following December sales of 5.510 million, revised from 5.490 million. Expectations had been for 5.540 million purchases in the [...]