Economy in Brief: July 2020

The CBI U.K. retail sales survey moved sharply higher to the still weak reading of +4 in July, rising from the -37 reading logged in June after an abysmal -50 reading in May. At least the CBI survey has climbed back to positive [...]

• Gasoline prices slip. • Crude oil prices rise slightly. • Natural gas prices weaken. Regular gasoline prices eased to $2.18 per gallon (-19.9% y/y) in the week ended July 27 from $2.19 in the previous week. The cost, nevertheless, [...]

• Manufacturing components show improvement. • Expectations are positive. Even though the Dallas Federal Reserve reported in its Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey that the General Business Activity Index remained negative at -3.0% in [...]

The German IFO diffusion index moved up to -7.5 in July from -17.1 in June. The queue standings of the index since 1991 is at its 34.6 percentile; since 2016 it is lower at its 7.3 percentile. On either historic comparison, it is a [...]

• Durable goods orders jumped for the second straight month. • Stronger transportation orders added to the record May increase. • Capital goods bookings firm. The factory sector is on the mend following the coronavirus shutdowns. New [...]

• New single-family home sales firmed for second month. • Sales rose throughout the country. • Prices strengthen to four-month high. Sales of new single-family homes increased 13.8% (6.9% y/y) during June to 776,000 (AR) from 682,000 [...]

The PMI data for selected Europe and the U.S. join the already released PMI data for Japan in July. Results in July exceed expectations. EMU, German, French and U.K. composite PMIs all tipped over the 50 mark, indicating private [...]

The GfK consumer confidence index that projects German confidence for the month ahead is up by 9.1 points in August, the second strongest gain in its 223-month history. The strongest gain came last month at 9.2 points. After dropping [...]