Economy in Brief: March 2016

Sales of new single-family homes increased 2.0% to 512,000 (SAAR, -6.1% y/y) during February after a 7.0% decline to 502,000 in January, revised from 494,000. Sales of 510,000 had been expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. [...]

Spanish price trends point lower in February. Spain's PPI prices fell year-over-year for overall producer prices led by a drop in intermediate goods prices. Consumer goods barely ticked higher over 12 months (0.2%) while investment [...]

The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that its total Mortgage Market Volume Index declined 3.3% last week (+6.4% y/y), the same as during the prior week. Purchase applications fell 1.0% (+25.3% y/y) after a 0.3% uptick, while [...]

Regular gasoline prices rose, on average, last week to $2.01 per gallon (-18.3% y/y) from $1.96 in the prior week. It was the highest price since mid-January, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. The price compares to a 2014 [...]

The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia reported that its Index of Nonmanufacturing Sector Activity at the company level fell to 17.5 in March. The measure has been declining since early last year. The expectations index for general [...]

The U.S. House Price Index from the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) during January increased 0.5% for the third consecutive month. The annual rate of increase has been fairly steady near 6.0% since 2014. Prices were strongest in [...]

The chart puts the evolution on the EMU-area PMIs in their proper context. Last month the two sector indices fell sharply. This month there is a partial rebound with services rebounding slightly more and manufacturing showing a very [...]

The chart in this article shows that the euro area current account surplus is still quite large. However, in the table data, we see month-to-month it is lower and that over three months it is lower and over 12 months it is lower. The [...]