Economy in Brief: July 2010

The Belgian National Bank index, a precursor of other EMU indicators and a relatively reliable harbinger of those reports, improved in July after suffering a set-back in June. The BNB index stands short of the two-thirds mark of its [...]

Economic activity began this summer on a sour note. The June National Activity Index (CFNAI), reported by the Chicago Fed, fell to -0.63 which was the lowest level since last October. Moreover, prior months' improvement was hardly [...]

Sales of existing homes continued to suffer with the expiration of a Federal home-buyer tax credit. Existing home sales fell 5.1% to 5.370M last month after a smaller 2.2% May decline, according to the National Association of [...]

For the second month in the last three, the Conference Board reported that their Index of Leading Economic Indicators fell. During June, the index slipped 0.2% following a revised 0.5% May gain, initially reported at 0.4%, and a 0.1% [...]

In May orders in the EMU surges by 3.8% a sharp acceleration from May's rise of 0.6%. With this surge the 3-, 6- and 12-month rates of growth are held high and steady at the extremely high pace of above 23% with the three-month growth [...]

The FLASH PMIs for EMU from Markit show that the European expansion's death has been greatly exaggerated. In July the MFG PMI advanced to a reading of 56.48 from 56.64 in June. The Services PMI rose to 55.98 in July from 55.51, also [...]

An earlier sign of job market improvement was fleeting. That's the message from the report that initial claims for jobless insurance jumped to 464,000 and more-than-reversed the prior week's decline. The earlier week's figure was [...]

The CASH Index is produced by the RBC Financial Group. It stands for Consumer Attitudes & Spending By Households and the overall series moves much like the University of Michigan's Index of Consumer Sentiment, but its components [...]