Economy in Brief: 2021

• Gasoline prices reverse piece of earlier decline. • Crude oil prices rise modestly. • Natural gas prices edge higher. The price of regular gasoline rose to $2.86 per gallon (48.5% y/y) in the week ended April 5 after falling to [...]

PMI data are being finalized in step-wise fashion. The table below presents the most up-to-date PMI reading for all the entries in the table. Final PMI readings were issued today for the U.S. and Japan; the rest show the ‘flash' [...]

• Factory orders fell for both durable and nondurable goods. • Shipments decline for both durable and nondurable goods. • But order backlogs & inventories both advance 0.8% in February. New orders for manufactured goods fell back in [...]

• Surprising strength led by business activity & new orders. • Employment bounces back. • Pricing improves to 2008 high as delivery speeds slow. Service sector activity strengthened last month along with the factory sector, as [...]

• Leisure & hospitality plus construction drive jobs strength. • Average hourly earnings slip. • Unemployment rate declines to lowest level in twelve months. The labor market has revived with business re-openings following [...]

• Leisure & hospitality plus construction drive jobs strength. • Average hourly earnings slip. • Unemployment rate declines to lowest level in twelve months. The labor market has revived with business re-openings following [...]

• Passenger car sales improve as light truck sales surge. • Domestic & import sales post strong increases. • Imports' share of vehicle market continues to rise. U.S. sales of light vehicles strengthened last month as COVID-19 vaccines [...]

Over 78% of the manufacturing PMIs in the table below show improvement in March compared to February. That's an extremely high proportion. On the timeline since January 2017, there is a good deal of improvement in train. Nine of the [...]