Economy in Brief: 2013

The rate of home price inflation is continuing to ease. The seasonally adjusted Case-Shiller 20 City Home Price Index rose 0.6% in July (12.4% y/y) following two months of 0.9% increase. It was the fourth consecutive month of lessened [...]

Germany's Ifo business climate gauge rose to 8 in September from 7.7 in August, marking its sixth straight monthly increase. The all-sector climate gauge sits in the 81.4 percentile of its historic queue implying that it's higher than [...]

The overall PMI metric for the European Monetary Union (EMU) improved in September on the back of a significant improvement in the services sector. The services diffusion reading moved up to 52.12 in September from 51.0 in August. In [...]

The Chicago Federal Reserve indicated that its National Activity Index (CFNAI) jumped last month. The August reading of 0.14 was the first positive figure in six months. There were, however, qualifiers regarding the degree of [...]

The overall U.S. unemployment rate moved declined last month to 7.3%. While the rate's improvement was widespread, it continued to reflect great variation amongst individual states. Nevada continued to be at the high end of the [...]

The overall U.S. unemployment rate declined last month to 7.3%. While the rate's improvement was widespread, it continued to reflect great variation amongst individual states. Nevada continued to be at the high end of the jobless [...]

Italy's trade picture has improved relatively sharply. Its trade position has been moving strongly into surplus over more than a year now. Over the last two months, however, the improvement in the trade trend has abated somewhat as [...]

Sales of existing homes increased 1.7% during August (13.2% y/y) to 5.480 mil. units (AR), according to the National Association of Realtors. Earlier figures were unrevised and the latest was the highest since February 2007. Consensus [...]