Economy in Brief: September 2016

Japan's `swing to surplus,' now 10 months old, continues in August and advances its cause (slightly). The excess of goods exports over goods imports is now the best since April of this year and before that the surplus was last higher [...]

The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that its total Mortgage Market Volume Index declined 7.3% last week (+16.4% y/y) to the lowest level in four weeks. Purchase applications fell 6.8% (+3.2% y/y) following the prior week's 8.6% [...]

Regular gasoline prices recovered to $2.23 per gallon (-4.4% y/y) last week, and reversed the prior week's decline according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Prices remained down versus a 2014 high of $3.71 per gallon. Haver [...]

The German PPI was flat in August. The PPI excluding energy was also flat. The CPI was flat in August. The CPI excluding energy was up by 0.1%. Is there a pattern here? Flat, flat, flat, and up by 0.1%. These are very moderate [...]

The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia reported that its September Index of Nonmanufacturing Sector Activity at the company level declined to 16.7, the lowest level since July 2015. It remained down sharply versus 53.9 in February [...]

Housing starts fell 5.8% during August (+0.9% y/y) to 1.142 million following a 1.4% July increase to 1.212 million, revised from 1.211 million. It was the lowest level of starts in three months. Expectations were for 1.19 million [...]

Total borrowing in the U.S. was $2,443 billion at a seasonally adjusted annual rate in Q2, down from $2,966 billion in Q1, according to the Financial Accounts of the U.S., released Friday by the Federal Reserve Board. The Q2 amount [...]

The Composite Housing Market Index from the National Association of Home Builders-Wells Fargo jumped 10.2% during September to 65 (6.7% y/y) following modest improvement to 59 in August, revised from 60. The latest reading matched the [...]