Economy in Brief: 2014

Euro area retail sales backed off in July as overall and ex-food sales fell. Both sales flows accelerated over 6-months compared to 12-months but then decelerated over 3-months compared to both six-months and 12-months. Motor vehicle [...]

The EMU PPI fell in July and its 1.1% year-over-year drop is the largest since April. Capital goods prices are eking out gains over all horizons (in the table), but the increases are marginal. Consumer goods prices over all horizons [...]

The U.S. manufacturing sector continued its solid rebound as the Institute for Supply Management's index of manufacturing sector activity jumped to 59.0 in August from 57.1 in July and 55.3 in June. The August move was much larger [...]

Chicago purchasing managers indicated that their August index of General Business Conditions jumped to 64.3 this month and more-than-reversed an unrevised drop to 52.6 in July. It was the highest level in three months and exceeded [...]

Today's data underscore the difficulty faced by the European Monetary Union. The unemployment rate remains high and declines are being posted generally only in the peripheral countries (the Netherlands, an exception to this) that have [...]

Personal consumption expenditures edged 0.1% lower last month (+3.6% y/y) following an unrevised 0.4% June increase. It was the first decline in six months. A 0.2% rise had been expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. When [...]

The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City reported that its August Composite index of 10th District factory sector activity deteriorated to 3, the lowest level since December. The composite index is an average of the production, new [...]

Initial claims for jobless insurance during the week ended August 23 slipped to 298,000 from 299,000 in the prior week, revised from 298,000. The latest figure compared to expectations for 300,000 claims in the Action Economics [...]