Economy in Brief: 2014

The U.S. foreign trade deficit during June eased to $41.5 billion from $44.7 billion in May. The deficit was the smallest since January and shallower than consensus estimates for $44.3 billion in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. [...]

It has not been a good day for statistics out of Europe. Italy has just unexpectedly recorded its second consecutive drop in quarterly GDP, giving way to cries of recession. Germany has reported out a large drop in orders and the [...]

The price for a gallon of regular gasoline declined two cents last week to $3.52 (-3.2% 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 [...]

New orders to all manufacturers jumped 1.1% (1.5% y/y) in June following a 0.6% decline during May, revised from -0.5%. A 0.6% increase was expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. A 1.7% rebound (-0.6% y/y) in durable goods [...]

In July the composite PMI for the European Monetary Union rose to 53.8 from June's 52.8. This represents a slight backtracking from the preliminary value. Moving averages over 12 months, six months and three months show progress from [...]

The price for a gallon of regular gasoline declined another five cents last week to $3.54 (-2.9% y/y). Prices remained down from the $3.78 per gallon peak reached in February of last year. To account for seasonal volatility, Haver [...]

Activity in the service & construction sectors increased last month at its quickest rate since August 2005. The Composite Index for the service & building sectors from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) rose to 58.7 in July [...]

Lower oil prices recently have countered increases in most other industrial commodity prices and left the overall trend muted. The industrial commodity price index, from the Foundation for International Business and Economic Research [...]