Economy in Brief: 2016

Initial claims for unemployment insurance declined to 252,000 (-7.0% y/y) in the week ending September 17 from an unrevised 260,000 in the prior week. The figure was near the lowest level since October 1973. The four-week moving [...]

The Conference Board's Composite Index of Leading Economic Indicators fell 0.2% during August (+1.1% y/y) following a 0.5% July gain, revised from 0.4%. It was the first decline in three months. Expectations had been for no change in [...]

Sales of existing homes fell 0.9% (+0.8% y/y) during August to 5.330 million units after 3.4% July decline to 5.380 million units, revised from 5.390 million. Expectations had been for 5.45 million sales in the Action Economics [...]

The Federal Housing Finance Agency's (FHFA) index of U.S. house prices increased 0.5% during July following a 0.3% June gain, revised from 0.2%. While the y/y change of 5.8% was fairly steady, the three month gain of 4.2% (AR) was [...]

Conflicting numbers and expectations stalk the U.K. outlook. In the wake of Brexit, the early `Big News' is that few economic reports seem to show much impact from the vote. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) just issued a [...]

The National Activity Index from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago declined to -0.55 during August from 0.24 in July, revised from 0.27. It was the weakest reading in three months. The three-month moving average was little changed [...]

At today's meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, the fed funds rate was left unchanged in the range of 0.25%-0.50%, as expected. The commentary in today's release was much the same as after the last meeting. Improvement in the [...]

Japan's `swing to surplus,' now 10 months old, continues in August and advances its cause (slightly). The excess of goods exports over goods imports is now the best since April of this year and before that the surplus was last higher [...]