Economy in Brief

• Sales of light trucks lead the improvement. • Domestic passenger car sales falter. • Imports' share of vehicle market improves. Light vehicle sales improved last month. The Autodata Corporation reported that sales of light vehicles [...]

The EMU region has just released its GDP growth rate which fell by 2.8% (saar) in Q4. Of the six early EMU reporters in the table, only two, Italy and France, showed GDP declines in Q4. This, however, is an odd quarter as it is the [...]

• Gasoline prices continue to rise. • Oil prices ease slightly. • Natural gas prices bounce back. The price of regular gasoline increased to $2.41 per gallon (-1.9% y/y) in the week ended February 1 from $2.39 per gallon in the [...]

• Overall activity hits record high. • Residential building surge led by single-family sector. • Public sector building edges higher. The value of construction put-in-place increased 1.0% during December (5.7% y/y) following [...]

Nine reporters in the table have manufacturing sectors that took a step back in January while eight improved on the month. The unweighted average PMI reading edged lower to 53.9 in January from 54.2 in December. In Asia, the [...]

• Factory activity slips m/m but remains strong y/y. • New orders & production weaken. • Pricing power improves further. Activity in the factory sector weakened slightly last month. The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) reported [...]

The table shows the early reporters of GDP in the EMU plus the U.S. result. On the far right, I present a percentile ranking of the year-on-year GDP growth rates on data back to 1997. Despite a massive rebound in GDP in Q3 – and one [...]

• Pending home sales fall for fourth consecutive month. • Sales are mixed across the country. Pending home sales eased 0.3% (+21.4% y/y) in December, after falling 2.5% in November, according to the National Association of Realtors [...]