Economy in Brief: 2016

Germany's look-ahead consumer confidence indicator from GfK sees a drop in confidence in October. The setback is small, taking the monthly reading to 10.0, from September's 10.2, which has been the cycle as well as the all-time high. [...]

The Conference Board reported that's its Consumer Confidence index increased 2.3% (1.5% y/y) to 104.1 during September following a 5.3% jump in August. It was the highest level since August 2007. A 1.9% rise had been expected in the [...]

Throw in the kitchen sink, Mario The euro area remains largely unresponsive to all the central bank's efforts to revive it. Mario Draghi in his address to the European parliament's Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee noted that [...]

Natural gas prices remained strong last week and increased to $3.07 per mmbtu (19.4% y/y). It was the highest level since December 2014, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Prices were fairly steady at $3.05 yesterday. Regular [...]

The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas reported that its general activity index of factory sector activity in Texas remained negative during September. However, the figure at -3.7 was improved versus the low of -34.6 in January. The [...]

The new home market has weakened recently. Sales of new single-family homes declined 7.6% during August (+20.6% y/y) to 609,000 (SAAR) from 659,000 in July, revised from 654,000. Sales of 597,000 had been expected in the Action [...]

Germany's business expectations in the IFO survey 'flipped' from a reading of -2.8 in August to one of +5.9 in September. This sort of one-month spurt is rare. In fact, the change in the monthly IFO expectations index has been greater [...]

The EMU composite (private sector) index has fallen in September to a diffusion reading of 52.6 from 52.9 in August. It is the weakest reading since January 2015. This overall PMI gauge is now in the 52nd percentile of its queue of [...]