Economy in Brief

• Passenger car sales improve as light truck sales surge. • Domestic & import sales post strong increases. • Imports' share of vehicle market continues to rise. U.S. sales of light vehicles strengthened last month as COVID-19 vaccines [...]

Over 78% of the manufacturing PMIs in the table below show improvement in March compared to February. That's an extremely high proportion. On the timeline since January 2017, there is a good deal of improvement in train. Nine of the [...]

• Harsh winter weather curtailed building activity. • Residential decline led by multi-family sector. • Public-sector building weakened. Building activity weakened as severe winter weather curtailed activity. The value of construction [...]

• Factory activity increases to 1983 high. • Component strength is broad-based. • Pricing power remains strong. Factory sector activity remained robust last month. The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) reported that its Composite [...]

• PUA claims continue to decline. • Insured jobless rate is unchanged in the week ending March 20. Initial claims for unemployment insurance were 719,000, an increase of 61,000 from the previous week, which was revised down by 26,000 [...]

• TEXT. • TEXT. • TEXT. PREVIOUS>>>>>The ISM-Chicago Purchasing Managers Business Barometer fell 4.3 points in February to 59.5................. The MNI Chicago Report is produced by MNI in partnership with ISM-Chicago. The survey is [...]

EMU inflation in March and February is tranquil. But in the wake of a massive rise in January, calculated inflation rates for three-months and six-months are uncomfortably large. Year-on-year inflation in the EMU is just at 1.2%. That [...]

• Sales are constrained by limited supply. • Harsh winter weather likely also constrained sales. Pending home sales fell 10.6% (-0.5% y/y) during February following a 2.4% January drop, revised from -2.8%. According to the National [...]