Economy in Brief: February 2018

The Conference Board's Composite Index of Leading Economic Indicators strengthened 1.0% during January. That raised the y/y change to 6.2%, its strongest since October 2014. The latest increase followed an unrevised 0.6% December [...]

Initial unemployment insurance claims fell to 222,000 (-10.9% y/y) during the week ended February 17 from 229,000 in the prior week, revised from 230,000. Expectations had been for 230,000 claims in the Action Economics Forecast [...]

The National Association of Realtors reported that sales of existing homes declined 3.2% during January (-4.8% y/y) to 5.380 million (AR) from 5.560 million in December, revised from 5.570 million. Expectations were for 5.620 million [...]

European PMIs pulled back in February. The services PMI pullback was relatively strong. Still, for the EMU, Germany and France, the moving average values of the PMIs overall as well as the sector indexes continue to advance. The [...]

The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that its total Mortgage Applications Volume Index declined 6.6% last week (+0.4% y/y) and added to the prior week's 4.1% fall. Purchase loan applications dropped 6.2% (+4.0% y/y), about the [...]

Retail gasoline prices fell to $2.56 per gallon last week (+11.1% y/y) from $2.61 per gallon. Prices reached a peak level of $2.64 two weeks ago. Haver Analytics constructs factors adjusting for the seasonal variation in gasoline pump [...]

The German ZEW economic expectations index fell to 17.8 in February from 20.4 in January. The current index fell to 92.3 from January's 95.2. The current index is this high or higher only 0.9% of the time. The expectations index is [...]

The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia's Nonmanufacturing Business Index of current conditions at the company level increased to 32.1 in February from 29.3 during January. It was the highest index level since April. Forty-six [...]