Economy in Brief: March 2013

The employment market continues to firm. The Labor Department reported that layoffs of 50 or more persons from a single firm fell to 960 during February, near the cycle's low. That comes on the heels of a 7.8% decline to 17,080 during [...]

The U.S. House Price Index from the Federal Housing and Finance Agency (FHFA) rose another 0.6% during January following three consecutive months of similar increase. The 6.5% y/y rise was its strongest since the middle of 2006; it [...]

The National Association of Realtors reported that sales of existing homes improved 0.8% (10.2% y/y) during February to a 4.98M annual rate. The increase followed an upwardly revised 0.8% January rise. The latest fell short of [...]

The Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank reported that its General Business Conditions Index rebounded during March to 2.0. That followed an unrevised sharp February decline to -12.5. Haver Analytics constructs a seasonally adjusted [...]

The index of Leading Economic Indicators, published by the Conference Board, increased 0.5% (2.0% y/y) during February after a revised 0.5% January increase, initially reported as 0.2%. Eighty percent of the component series had a [...]

The EMU PMIs for March have turned lower, after a short hopeful push higher. The services sector is pretty much without upward momentum as the chart plainly shows. Its recent bump up is really nothing more than that, a bump. But even [...]

Initial claims for jobless insurance inched up to 336,000 during the week ended March 16 from 334,000 during the prior week (revised from 332,000). Consensus expectations were for 340,000 claims. The four week moving average of claims [...]

As expected, the Federal Open Market Committee today left the Federal funds rate in a "range from 0 to 1/4 percent". The Fed funds rate has remained unchanged since late-2008 at its lowest level ever. The discount rate also was left [...]