Economy in Brief: April 2011

Some improvement in the housing market is apparent in the mortgage applications data. The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that overall mortgage applications rose 5.3% last week for the first gain in four weeks. Applications to [...]

The National Association of Realtors reported that sales of existing homes rose during March to 5.100M (AR) from a February level of 4.920M, revised from 4.880M. The last was slightly higher than Consensus expectations for 5.00M sales [...]

The German PPI lost some zing in March as it rose by 0.3% after a burning hot January and February with gains of 1.1% and 0.7%, respectively. The sequential growth rates still indicate a charging-up of inflation as 3-mo inflation [...]

April has been a strong month for retail sales. Last week, chain stores alone recorded a 0.3% w/w increase to another record high. For the month so far sales have risen 2.6% from March after that month's 3.0% increase. During the last [...]

No need to tell drivers that it's more expensive to hit the road. Last week, the pump price for regular gasoline rose another nickel to $3.84 per gallon, the highest level since August, 2008. The gain has been from the December low [...]

Canada offers various measures of inflation but they all agree that the rate of inflation is on the rise. Inflation accelerated across most categories in February and did it again in March. Yet inflation is not broadly higher over [...]

It was a rough winter for the housing sector. The latest indication is the only moderate 7.2% m/m rebound in seasonally-adjusted housing starts last month following a 18.5% February plunge. The rise brought the level to 549,000 (AR) [...]

Spring has done nothing to lift activity in the housing market. The National Association of Home Builders reported that its April index of housing market activity slipped back to 16 from an unrevised 17 in March. Though the latest [...]