Economy in Brief: March 2012

New home sales slipped last month. Moreover, what's been a sideways trend in new home sales contrasts with the improvement in existing home sales demonstrated in Wednesday's report. Sales of new homes declined 1.6% during February to [...]

The Insee Business climate indicator rose to 96 in March from 92 in February. It's the first increase in the indicator since June of last year. The climate reading is still weak below the midpoint of its high-low range since 1990. Its [...]

The PMIs for MFG and for Services in EMU are taking it on the chin. They are dropping in value and they have crossed the Rubicon between expansion and contraction. For MFG the shrinking sector signal is in place for eight straight [...]

The U.S. House Price Index from the Federal Housing and Finance Agency (FHFA) has been roughly unchanged for two consecutive months. The marginal January decline followed a downwardly revised 0.1% December uptick, initially reported [...]

The economic outlook is getting brighter. The Conference Board reported that its Leading Economic Indicator index gained 0.7% during February following a revised 0.2% January rise, last month reported as 0.4%. A 0.6% increase had been [...]

The labor market continues to show life. That's the message from last week's decline in initial claims for unemployment insurance to 348,000 from 353,000 during the previous period, initially estimated at 351,000. Claims averaged [...]

Japan’s sector indices are each well below their recent peaks on the charts. Each shows a decline for the period of the financial crisis, from which manufacturing and services made some sort of recovery. Each also depicts the hit from [...]

Higher interest rates are having a quick effect on mortgage loan applications. The index of total mortgage applications fell 7.4% last week to 681.9 (+30% y/y), down for the sixth consecutive week. Applications to refinance fell 9.3% [...]