Economy in Brief: April 2018

The National Association of Realtors reported that sales of existing homes increased 1.1% during March (-1.2% y/y) to 5.600 million units (AR) following an unrevised 3.0% February gain to 5.540 million units. Expectations had been for [...]

The German year-on-year PPI has generally been decelerating since early 2017. Technically, the year-on-year PPI has decelerated for six months straight with this month’s acceleration being the first in the period. This is despite the [...]

The Industrial Materials Price Index from the Foundation for International Business and Economic Research (FIBER) increased 0.4% during the last four weeks. The improvement was powered by just two sectors, metals & petroleum. During [...]

U.K. GDP is expected to cool its jets when the first quarter GDP number is released. The National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) estimates that U.K. GDP rose by 0.2% in Q1 2018. That translates into an annualized [...]

The Conference Board's Composite Index of Leading Economic Indicators increased 0.3% during March following a 0.7% February gain, revised from 0.6%. The y/y change strengthened to 6.2% from 4.1% during all of last year. The latest [...]

Initial unemployment insurance claims slipped to 232,000 (-6.1% y/y) during the week ended April 14 from an unrevised 233,000 in the prior week. Expectations had been for 230,000 initial claims in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. [...]

The Philadelphia Federal Reserve reported that its General Factory Sector Business Conditions Index rose to 23.2 during April, reversing some of March's decline. Expectations had been for a reading of 21.0 in the Action Economics [...]

While the IMF has just lifted its outlook for growth in 2018, Japan is logging weaker and weaker export and import growth as the year progresses. Asia generally has been lagging. The PMIs in Europe have weakened but are still showing [...]