Economy in Brief: November 2011

The pump price for regular gasoline fell seven cents last week to $3.37 per gallon. Prices were the lowest since February when they averaged $3.21. Retail prices usually start to ease this time of year with reduced seasonal demand. To [...]

Chain store sales fell 0.9% last week following gains during the prior three weeks. As a result, the average for this month so far is up 1.0% (2.8% y/y) from October when sales fell 0.6% m/m. During the last ten years there has been a [...]

Real GDP grew at a revised 2.0% annual rate in Q3 versus the Advance estimate of 2.5% growth. The figure fell short of Consensus expectations for an unrevised 2.5% rate of growth. It remained, however, the strongest quarterly growth [...]

Singapore and Thailand announced their third quarter GDPs today. Singapore reported a year over year rise of 6.1% and Thailand one of 3.5%. Year over year growth in the two countries is shown in the first chart. Officials in both [...]

The Chicago Fed's National Activity Index (CFNAI) rose during October to -0.13 from -0.20 in September, which was little-revised. The three-month moving average fell to -0.27, its lowest level since June. The figures have been [...]

The National Association of Realtors reported that October sales of existing homes rose 1.4% last month to 4.970M (AR, +13.5% y/y) following a 3.2% September decline, last month reported as -3.0%. The y/y comparison remained sharply [...]

The National Association for Business Economics reported little change to its U.S. economic growth forecast. This follows sharp downward revision in its September numbers. For this year, real GDP growth should average 1.8%, versus [...]

The Conference Board reported that its Leading Economic Indicators index rose 0.9% during October following a 0.1% September rise, revised down from 0.2% reported last month. The gain beat the Consensus forecast for a 0.6% increase. [...]