Economy in Brief: 2021

• Modest job increase follows upwardly revised January reading. • Reduced growth is broad-based amongst payroll sizes. • Factory workforce size declines. Job market strength moderated last month. The ADP National Employment Report [...]

• Purchase loan applications rise; refinancing applications essentially unchanged. • Mortgage interest rates rise further along with other market rates. The Mortgage Bankers Association Mortgage Loan Applications Index edged up 0.5% [...]

• Sales of cars & light trucks ease. • Domestic passenger car sales fall sharply again. • Imports' share of vehicle market remains firm. Light vehicle sales faltered last month. The Autodata Corporation reported that sales of light [...]

German and other European retail sales have been put through a sort of test of fire in the wake of the covid-19 virus arrival and its various episodes of spreading. As an example, even in the U.S. where now over 20% of the population [...]

• Gasoline prices rise as driving increases. • Oil prices rise further with production cutbacks. • Natural gas prices weaken following surge. The price of regular gasoline strengthened to $2.71 per gallon (11.9% y/y) in the week ended [...]

Inflation fears have surfaced in financial markets in recent weeks. That at least is the message from rising bond yields and the climb in breakeven inflation rates that has accompanied that increase. Greater confidence in a global [...]

• Overall economic growth benefits from low price inflation. • Improvement versus 2020 emerges across sectors. • Interest rates increase. The National Association for Business Economics expects 4.0% real GDP growth in 2022 following a [...]

PMIs largely are improving in February with declines in only six and increases in eight (excluding France and Germany who already are counted in the EMU). The unweighted average for February rose for the overall group (excluding [...]