Economy in Brief: February 2015

Inflation is gone. Deflation has come. It's no Saturday Night Live `land shark' skit and it's too late to just not open the door. Year over year prices are lower by 2.7% in Greece and by 1.4% in Spain: these are real drops. Finland [...]

Initial unemployment insurance claims fell to 283,000 during the week ended February 14 from an unrevised 304,000 during the prior week. The four-week moving average of initial claims declined to 283,250, the lowest level since late- [...]

Average gasoline prices improved another 8 cents last week to $2.27 per gallon (-32.7% y/y) following the prior week's 12 cent lift. Despite the gains, prices remained well below the $3.70 per gallon peak reached this past June. Haver [...]

Industrial production increased 0.2% during January (4.8% y/y) following a 0.3% December decline, earlier reported as -0.1%. The latest gain was helped by a 2.2% rise (-6.6%) in utility output. Manufacturing sector production improved [...]

The overall Final Demand Producer Price Index fell 0.8% during January (0.0% y/y) following a 0.2% December decline, revised from -0.3%. A 0.5% drop was expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. Prices excluding food & energy [...]

Housing starts during January edged 2.0% lower to 1.065 million from 1.087 million in December, revised from 1.089 million. Still, starts remained near the highest level in roughly seven years. Earlier figures were revised slightly [...]

U.K. claimant count paints a wonderful ongoing recovery picture of the economy. The number of claimants and their associated rate of unemployment surged higher in the financial crisis/recession and have since swooped lower to register [...]

The Composite Housing Market Index from the National Association of Home Builders-Wells Fargo declined to 55 in February (+19.6% y/y) from an unrevised 57 in January. It was the lowest figure since October. During the last ten years, [...]