Economy in Brief: May 2018

The Federal Housing Finance Agency's (FHFA) index of U.S. house prices ticked 0.1% higher (6.7% y/y) during March after two months of 0.8% increase. February's gain was revised from 0.6% and January from 0.9%. The 6.7% y/y rate of [...]

Initial unemployment insurance claims increased to 234,000 (-1.3% y/y) during the week ended May 19 following an increase to 223,000 during the prior week, revised from 222,000. Expectations were for 220,000 claims in the Action [...]

Sales of new single-family homes during April slipped 1.5% (+11.6% y/y) to 662,000 (SAAR) from 672,000 during March, revised from 694,000. Expectations had been for 680,000 sales in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. The median [...]

The chart of the PMI values is very telling and disturbing. With this month’s drop, the tail off in the PMIs is quite clear and the run up now looks like it was a flash-in-the-pan. Manufacturing’s PMI certainly ran up to a peak and [...]

The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that its total Mortgage Applications Volume Index was off 2.6% last week (-11.9% y/y), following a similar fall during the prior week. It was the fifth consecutive week of decline and left [...]

U.S. Energy Prices Continue to Rise by Tom Moeller May yesterday (21.8% y/y) from $2.87 per gallon during the prior week. It was the highest price level since November 2014. Haver Analytics constructs factors adjusting for the [...]

The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia's Nonmanufacturing Business Index of current conditions at the company level increased to 39.5 in May as it improved to the highest level since 2015. Fifty-two percent of respondents reported [...]

U.K. orders backed off from their recent high levels but continue to offer up a relatively strong outlook. The rest of the survey remains substantially upbeat from a business standpoint. The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) [...]