Economy in Brief: June 2017

The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index rose 1.1% during June (22.1% y/y) to 118.9, following a little-revised 1.5% decline during May to 117.6. The index was 4.8% below its March peak, which was its highest level since [...]

Regular gasoline prices fell to $2.29 per gallon last week (-1.8% y/y), the lowest level since early-February. Haver Analytics constructs factors adjusting for the seasonal variation in gasoline pump prices. The seasonally adjusted [...]

Italian consumer and business confidence rose in June. Business confidence reverses the decline of last month but still leaves the June reading below the level of April, but just ahead of March. Consumer confidence for June also rose [...]

The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas indicated in its Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey that the General Business Activity Index eased in June to 15.0, the lowest level since November. The production reading dropped sharply to the [...]

The IFO ordinary indexes (see Chart) continue to climb in June. The ordinary IFO indexes (not the diffusion indexes) are at their highest marks since January 1991 for both the headline and the current index. The expectation index has [...]

New orders for durable goods declined 1.1% during May following an unrevised 0.9% April fall. Despite the decline, orders increased 2.7% y/y after falling 1.7% during all of last year. A 0.6% decrease in orders had been expected in [...]

Sales of new single-family homes increased 2.9% during May (8.9% y/y) to 610,000 from 593,000 in April, revised from 569,000. Despite the increase, sales were 5.3% below the March peak. Expectations had been for 595,000 sales in the [...]

The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City reported that its index of regional manufacturing sector business activity rose to 11 in June, following an unrevised improvement to eight in May. It remained down sharply from the March reading [...]