Economy in Brief: 2014

Pending sales of single-family homes jumped 3.3% (-2.1% y/y) during July, according the National Association of Realtors (NAR), following a little-revised 1.3% June decline. The increase was to the highest level since last August. [...]

The economic recovery garnered more strength than estimated earlier. The second GDP estimate for Q2 indicated a 4.2% rate of growth, revised up from 4.0%. The gain followed a 2.1% Q1 decline and beat expectations for 3.9% growth in [...]

The EU Commission indices for August have their EU and EMU headlines and sector headlines available, but country detail is only available for a few early reporters rather than for the full set of EMU members. The economic sentiment [...]

Following a muted performance during all of last year, the cost of food is again leading consumer prices higher. During the last twelve months, the consumer price index for food has risen 2.6%, well ahead of nonfood price inflation of [...]

Germany's consumer climate rating for September fell to 8.6 from 8.9 in August. The drop is the first since January 2013. The climate reading fell by 0.3 percentage points, which is the largest drop since May 2011 (more than three [...]

The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that their total Mortgage Market Volume Index rose 2.8% last week (-19.9% y/y) after the prior week's 1.4% gain. Applications were at the highest level since early last month. Applications to [...]

The price for a gallon of regular gasoline declined two cents last week to $3.45 (-2.8% y/y). Prices remained down from the $3.78 per gallon peak reached in February of last year. To account for seasonal volatility, Haver Analytics [...]

The Conference Board reported that their reading of consumer confidence improved 2.3% this month to 92.4 (13.0% y/y) from 90.3 in July, revised from 90.9. The latest figure beat expectations for 88.8 in the Action Economics Forecast [...]