Economy in Brief: August 2017

The French industry climate gauge at 111.3 in August is up from 108.1 in July and at its highest reading since December 2007, logging its highest reading in nearly a decade. The industrial climate gauge standing is in the 77th [...]

Initial unemployment insurance applications rose to 234,000 (-10.0% y/y) during the week ended August 19 from an unrevised 232,000 during the prior week. Expectations in the Action Economics Forecast Survey were for 238,000 claims. [...]

Sales of new single-family homes in July fell 9.4% to 571,000 following an upwardly revised June gain of 1.9% to 630,000. The latter was revised from 610,000. The July volume was the lowest since December's 548,000. Expectations in [...]

In the EMU, manufacturing carries the day to move the sticks higher for the overall PMI gain as the service sector reading steps backward in August. The EMU manufacturing gauge gained 0.8 points in August while the services gauge lost [...]

Regular gasoline prices edged down 2 cents in the week ended August 21 to $2.36 per gallon (7.6% y/y), remaining below the recent high of $2.45 per gallon in late-April. Haver Analytics constructs factors adjusting for the seasonal [...]

The FHFA home price tracker is put together a bit more scientifically than the NAR existing home price index. Still, over broad periods, the two indexes track relatively well. Over short periods, they can be quite different. The NAR [...]

The current economic situation in Germany and for most of the countries in the table continues to improve as expectations are being capped or set back in August. The current situation in the euro area advanced by 10 points month-to- [...]

A sharp drop in imports pushed the EMU trade surplus to a six-month high. The trade surplus rose to 22.3 billion euros in June from 19.0 billion euros in May, to its strongest point since logging a surplus of 23.0 billion euros in [...]