Economy in Brief: August 2020

• Pending home sales are reach highest level since October 2005. • Improvement continues but more moderately in all 4 regions. • Smallest increase in South, but it sets new record high. After substantial gains in May and June, pending [...]

• Q2 GDP fell less than the first estimate but this was still the largest quarterly decline on record. • Profits posted their second consecutive double-digit quarterly decline though smaller in Q2 than in Q1. • Decline still led by [...]

• State initial jobless claims declined to 1.006 million in the week ending August 22. • Federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance new filers increased to 607,806, the second consecutive gain. • Continuing claims for state programs [...]

The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia's state coincident indexes were generally strong in July. 45 states report gains since April (the map on the site, which charts the range of 3-month gains, is now a sea of blue. A few months [...]

French household confidence ticked higher in August to stand at 94.5 compared to 94.1 in July. Confidence had previously risen to 96.3 in June, but it is still below that level. Confidence fluctuated in a range from 102 to 105 from [...]

• Mortgage demand declines for refinancing. • Applications for fixed-rate loans rose greatly from a year ago while demand for adjustable rates fell. The Mortgage Bankers Association Mortgage Applications Index decreased 6.5% in the [...]

• Headline durable goods orders jumped 11.2% in July as transport soared 35.6%. • Excluding transportation orders were up a solid 2.4%, with core capital goods growing 1.9%. • Core capital goods orders are just 0.5% from their [...]

IFO headline The IFO business confidence index (we present data for the diffusion index below) rose for the fourth month in a row. It gained 11.1 points in May, 14.1 points in June, 9.6 points in July and this month it moved higher by [...]