Economy in Brief: 2021

• Gasoline prices edge higher. • Crude oil prices improve. • Natural gas prices strengthen. The price of regular gasoline ticked up to $2.87 per gallon (62.0% y/y) in the week ended April 26 from $2.86 per gallon in the prior week. [...]

• New orders growth & employment remain on rising trend. • Prices received & labor costs also rise. • Expectations strengthen led by new orders growth. Texas manufacturing activity continued to strengthen during April. The Texas [...]

The German IFO gauge rose in April but its month-on-month gain slowed, improving by just 1.4 diffusion points. Current conditions gained on the month by 2.3 diffusion points and expectations gave back 1.6 points. The climate gauge [...]

• Transportation orders decline sharply for a second month. • Orders of core capital goods reverse February decline. • Shipments rebound while order backlogs & inventories rise. Manufacturers' orders for durable goods rose 0.5% in [...]

The pace of improvement in state labor markets in March was varied. Despite the very large increase in national payrolls, only 29 states reported statistically significant gains, though Alaska was the only state to register a (small [...]

The flash PMIs from Markit show EMU values with the composite PMI rising to 53.7 in April from 53.2 in March. The manufacturing gauge actually ticked higher while the service sector PMI rose, carrying the day and pushing the composite [...]

• Sales rebound from weather-depressed February. • Gains spread throughout most of country. • Median home prices decline. New home sales surged last month to the highest level since August 2006. Sales of new single-family homes surged [...]

The U.K. Confederation of British Industry (CBI) survey saw its order component backtrack in April falling to -8 from -5 in March even as optimism on future output expectations gained purchase. Total orders have a queue standing in [...]