Economy in Brief: May 2011

Total new home sales in April rose 7.3% m/m to 323,000 (AR). The latest figure slightly beat expectations for 303,000 sales according to Action Economics. Despite the latest rise, new home sales still have fallen by three-quarters [...]

Weakening demand is affecting prices in the energy market. Last week, the pump price for regular gasoline fell to $3.85 per gallon though it remained up roughly one-third y/y. Moreover, pump prices usually start rising this time of [...]

Markit Economics released, today, the flash estimates derived from their May surveys of purchasing managers in China, France, Germany and the Euros Area, as a whole. Data for China are available only for the manufacturing sector while [...]

The list of indicators suggesting that the economy's forward momentum has waned continues to lengthen. The Chicago Fed reported that its National Activity Index (CFNAI) retraced its earlier improvement and fell to -0.45 in April from [...]

Earlier strength in commodity prices recently has given way to modest decline. Gold prices fell yesterday to $1,493 per ounce versus the high two weeks ago of $1,540. Crude oil prices were near the recent low at $98.44 per barrel [...]

The Conference Board reported that its Leading Economic Indicators Index unexpectedly declined 0.3% in April after an upwardly revised 0.7% March increase, originally reported at 0.4%. Consensus expectations were for a 0.1% uptick [...]

The Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank's index of regional factory sector activity dropped sharply in May to 3.9 from an unrevised 18.5 in April. It was the lowest since October and was well short of Consensus expectations for 20.0. [...]

The National Association of Realtors reported that sales of existing homes during April slipped to 5.050M (AR) from a March level of 5.090M, revised from 5.100M. The last was slightly higher than Consensus expectations for 5.20M sales [...]