Economy in Brief: April 2021

• COVID-19 shots & stimulus checks lift confidence to 14-month high. • Improvement in current conditions reading outpaces expectations increase. • Job market indexes continue to strengthen. Consumers are growing more confident in [...]

• House prices increased 0.9% in February. • Year-to-year increase at 12.2% edges up to new high. • All regions have participated in yearly double-digit advances. The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) House Price Index increased [...]

• Gasoline prices edge higher. • Crude oil prices improve. • Natural gas prices strengthen. The price of regular gasoline ticked up to $2.87 per gallon (62.0% y/y) in the week ended April 26 from $2.86 per gallon in the prior week. [...]

• New orders growth & employment remain on rising trend. • Prices received & labor costs also rise. • Expectations strengthen led by new orders growth. Texas manufacturing activity continued to strengthen during April. The Texas [...]

The German IFO gauge rose in April but its month-on-month gain slowed, improving by just 1.4 diffusion points. Current conditions gained on the month by 2.3 diffusion points and expectations gave back 1.6 points. The climate gauge [...]

• Transportation orders decline sharply for a second month. • Orders of core capital goods reverse February decline. • Shipments rebound while order backlogs & inventories rise. Manufacturers' orders for durable goods rose 0.5% in [...]

The pace of improvement in state labor markets in March was varied. Despite the very large increase in national payrolls, only 29 states reported statistically significant gains, though Alaska was the only state to register a (small [...]

The flash PMIs from Markit show EMU values with the composite PMI rising to 53.7 in April from 53.2 in March. The manufacturing gauge actually ticked higher while the service sector PMI rose, carrying the day and pushing the composite [...]