Economy in Brief: July 2011

Initial unemployment insurance claims rose last week to 418,000 versus a revised 408,000 during the week prior, initially reported as 405,000. The Labor Department indicated that the latest figure reflected 1,750 initial claims due to [...]

The National Association of Realtors reported a further loss of strength in the housing market. Sales of existing homes during June slipped 0.8% to 4.770M from an unrevised 4.810M in May. The latest was weaker than Consensus [...]

Overall mortgage applications jumped 15.5% last week. The gain followed four weeks of decline. Remaining strong were applications to refinance which jumped nearly one-quarter w/w, also after four weeks of decline. Working the other [...]

Japan’s LEI advanced in May as Japan continued the process of recovery in the post disaster period. The LEI data still do not have much distance from the development of the disasters and their lingering impacts. The LEI’s strong move [...]

The financial community in Germany represented by 288 institutional investors and analysts in the ZEW July survey has become more guarded in its expectations of macroeconomic developments over the next six months as the excess of [...]

Chain store sales rose 0.4% last week for the fourth consecutive weekly gain. The increase pulled sales to a record high and up 3.5% so far in July versus June. During the last ten years there has been a 66% correlation between the [...]

Good news often doesn't last forever. Reversing earlier declines, the pump price for regular gasoline rose four cents last week to $3.68 per gallon, its highest in a month. Nevertheless, prices remained down twenty eight cents since [...]

New residential building activity just can't break out to the upside. Housing starts rose 14.6% last month to 629,000 (AR) following a downwardly revised no change in May. Despite the increase, however, the lift only made up for [...]