Economy in Brief: 2019

The U.S. trade deficit in goods and services widened a bit more than expected to $54.9 billion in August from an unrevised $54.0 billion in July. The Action Economics Forecast Survey anticipated $54.6 billion. Exports rose by 0.2% [...]

Job growth moderated recently. Nonfarm payrolls increased 136,000 (1.4% y/y) during September following a 168,000 August rise, revised from 130,000. July's increase also was revised higher to 166,000 from 159,000. A 145,000 September [...]

Factory orders improved 0.3% (-1.2% y/y) during October....... The factory sector figures are available in Haver's USECON database. The expectation figure is in the AS1REPNA database. Factory Sector (% chg) - NAICS Classification Nov [...]

The good news - and there has not been enough of that these days - is that in EMU consumer spending trends are holding up nicely. Spending trends are generally neither accelerating steadily nor decelerating steadily in the EMU. But [...]

Factory sector activity has been under pressure. Manufacturers' orders slipped 0.1% during August (-1.9% y/y) following an unrevised 1.4% increase during July. The Action Economics Forecast survey expected a 0.5% decline. Durable [...]

The Composite Index of Nonmanufacturing Sector Activity from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) fell more than expected to 52.6 during September from 56.4 in August. July's reading was 53.7. September's index is the weakest in [...]

Initial claims for unemployment insurance rose to 219,000 (0.1% y/y) during the week ended September 28 from 215,000 in the previous week, revised from 213,000. It was the highest level of claims in four weeks. The Action Economics [...]

Japan's Tankan survey weakened in Q3 as did the outlook for Q4. The only ‘saving grace' in this report is that despite widespread weakness it had been expected to show even greater slippage. This is a very comprehensive and closely [...]