Economy in Brief: December 2015

Initial claims for unemployment insurance declined to 271,000 (-4.6% y/y) in the week ending December 12 from an unrevised 282,000 in the previous week. The decline reversed most of the prior month's increase. Action Economics [...]

Germany's Ifo business climate index backtracked in December to 10.4 from 10.9 in November. Still, the all-sector climate index stands in the 80.5 percentile of its historic queue of data. Among the components, manufacturing edged [...]

The Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank reported that its General Factory Sector Business Conditions Index for December fell to -5.9, the third negative reading in the last four months. Expectations were for 1.5 in the Action Economics [...]

At today's meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, the Fed raised the federal funds rate to a target range of 0.25% to 0.50% from 0.00% to 0.25%. The rate had been steady since December 2008, having fallen from a 5.25% high in [...]

Overall industrial output fell 0.6% during November (-1.2% y/y) following a 0.4% October decline, revised from -0.2%. The Action Economics Forecast Survey expected a 0.1% fall. A 4.3% decline (-7.6% y/y) in utility output accounted [...]

Housing starts during November recovered 10.5% to 1.173 million (SAAR) from 1.062 million in October, last month reported as 1.060 million. Starts were 18.5% higher than one year earlier. The latest figure surpassed expectations for [...]

The chart shows the long flat performance of the EMU-wide services metric while manufacturing shows only a recent tendency to tick higher. The EMU has a composite PMI measure that is even with its six-month average but below its [...]

The Consumer Price Index was unchanged (0.5% y/y) during November following a 0.2% October rise. Prices excluding food & energy increased 0.2% (2.0% y/y) for the third consecutive month. Both the total and core price figures matched [...]