Economy in Brief: 2018

France's INSEE manufacturing survey fell sharply as the headline climate index shed the better part of three points dropping to 107.0 in September from 109.7 in August. The index has fallen more sharply than this less than 20% of the [...]

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Price Index for house purchases increased 0.2% in July (6.4% y/y) following a 0.3% June gain, revised from 0.2%. It was the weakest increase since March. Over the last three months, the index [...]

Gasoline prices, at $2.84 per gallon last week (10.1% y/y), were unchanged from the prior week and have been roughly steady since May. Haver Analytics constructs factors to adjust for the marked seasonal variation in prices. The [...]

The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas indicated in its Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey that the General Business Activity Index fell to 28.1 during September, the lowest level in four months. Despite its recent sideways movement, the [...]

The German IFO Institute index has gone sideways in September. The basic indexes that are plotted in the chart show that climate is unchanged at an index value of 105.3. The current situation is slightly weaker on a reading of 108.2, [...]

EMU PMIs soar then sink The EMU PMI sank to its cyclical low in mid-2016 then hit its cycle higher in 2018 as it ran up 5.9 points to its cycle high. In September 2018, the index has fallen back shedding 4.4 points from its peak and [...]

The Industrial Materials Price Index from the Foundation for International Business and Economic Research (FIBER) eased 0.3% during the last four weeks and extended the decline in prices since the peak in the middle of June. The [...]

Borrowing in U.S. financial markets slowed in Q2 2018, according to the Federal Reserve's Financial Accounts data, totaling $2,596 billion at a seasonally adjusted annual rate, compared to $4,512 billion in Q1. The federal government [...]