Economy in Brief: May 2007

Starts rise by 2.5% after downward revision of 1.8% still a net rise on month. Permits fall by 8.9% - drops in all regions. Starts are off by 16.1% year/year compared to permits that are off by 28.1%. Builders hack permits to get them [...]

Eurostat issued its flash estimates for GDP growth in the 13 country Euro area and the 27 country European Union. In both cases the estimates showed, as expected, a deceleration from the 0.9% growth in the fourth quarter of 2006 to [...]

CPI Headline +0.4% +2.6% y/y. CPI-Core: +0.2% +2.3% y/y. The CPI headline is a touch better than expected. The core at 0.2% is as excepted bringing the Core year/year pace to 2.3% year/year at the boundary of Fed discomfort. It is not [...]

CPI Headline +0.4% +2.6% y/y. CPI-Core: +0.2% +2.3% y/y. The CPI headline is a touch better than expected. The core at 0.2% is as excepted bringing the Core year/year pace to 2.3% year/year at the boundary of Fed discomfort. It is not [...]

Japan's current account surplus on a seasonally unadjusted basis, was at an all time high in March at 3,317 billion yen, as can be seen in the first chart. The goods component of the surplus was 1,782.0 billion yen, and the income [...]

German retail trends are hard to pin down. The German VAT tax that took effect in January of 2007 helped to bulge retail sales in December and to wither them in the following months. The three-month growth rate is particularly weak in [...]

Industrial production in MFG in the Euro area in March rose by 0.3%. But the chart shows that a deceleration is underway. Yr/Yr growth is steady at just under 5.3%. But over the last three months output has lost momentum. The table [...]

German retail trends are hard to pin down. The German VAT tax that took effect in January of 2007 helped to bulge retail sales in December and to wither them in the following months. The three-month growth rate is particularly weak in [...]