Economy in Brief: June 2017

The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia's Nonmanufacturing Business Index of current conditions in June rose to 28.0 from 25.8 during May. The index remained down, however, versus the February high of 38.0. Forty-one percent of [...]

Virtually all major swings on this time line in the German PPI are caused by swings in oil prices. But now Brent is falling. In the most topical daily data venue Brent has hit a 7-month low in price. An oil glut is eviscerating OPEC. [...]

The U.S. current account deficit of $116.8 billion during Q1'17 was larger than a revised $114.0 billion in Q4'16. The Q1 deficit figure compared to $123.6 billion expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. The latest quarterly [...]

Japan's trade surplus continues to putter along in a show draft instead of rising as had been expected in May. Japan's exports were flat while imports advanced by 0.3%. Exports show a steady trend of deceleration with growth of 12.2% [...]

The Industrial Materials Price Index from the Foundation for International Business and Economic Research (FIBER) declined 2.7% during the last four weeks, but remained up 9.1% during the last twelve months. This adds to the strength [...]

In Europe, both car registrations and retail sales are engaged in a long post-recession rebound. Both recoveries seem to be in train. Car registrations jumped by 13.4% in May reversing a sharp 8.7% drop in April. Sequential growth [...]

The Labor Market Conditions Index (LMCI) from the Federal Reserve Board includes 19 indicators of labor market activity, covering the broad categories of unemployment and underemployment. These include jobs, workweeks, wages, [...]

New home building continued to exhibit weakness last month. Total housing starts fell 5.5% (-2.6% y/y) during May to 1.092 million (AR) from 1.156 million in April, revised from 1.172 million. It was the lowest level of starts since [...]