Economy in Brief: 2010

Modest improvement in home prices again was apparent during May. Too much should not be made of it, however, since "improvement" means stability after earlier declines. Seasonally adjusted, the Case-Shiller Home Price Index inched up [...]

India is experiencing high inflation in contrast to China and South Korea, as can be seen in the first chart that shows the year over year percentage changes in the consumer price indexes of the three countries. The financial crisis [...]

Any real improvement in housing has yet to show itself. The Census Department indicated that new home sales last month rose 23.6% from May to 330,000. However, the rise followed a sharper May decline following the end to the Federal [...]

The Belgian National Bank index, a precursor of other EMU indicators and a relatively reliable harbinger of those reports, improved in July after suffering a set-back in June. The BNB index stands short of the two-thirds mark of its [...]

Economic activity began this summer on a sour note. The June National Activity Index (CFNAI), reported by the Chicago Fed, fell to -0.63 which was the lowest level since last October. Moreover, prior months' improvement was hardly [...]

Sales of existing homes continued to suffer with the expiration of a Federal home-buyer tax credit. Existing home sales fell 5.1% to 5.370M last month after a smaller 2.2% May decline, according to the National Association of [...]

For the second month in the last three, the Conference Board reported that their Index of Leading Economic Indicators fell. During June, the index slipped 0.2% following a revised 0.5% May gain, initially reported at 0.4%, and a 0.1% [...]

In May orders in the EMU surges by 3.8% a sharp acceleration from May's rise of 0.6%. With this surge the 3-, 6- and 12-month rates of growth are held high and steady at the extremely high pace of above 23% with the three-month growth [...]