Economy in Brief

• Business activity index rises in December after falling to three-month low in November. • Production, order backlogs, employment and inventories gain. • New orders slide. The Chicago Purchasing Managers Business Barometer rebounded [...]

• Pending home sales fall for the third straight month. • Sales drop in all the major regions. Pending home sales fell 2.6% (+16.4% y/y) in November, the third consecutive m/m fall, after a 0.9% drop in October, according to data [...]

• Widening much larger than expected. • Net exports to be drag on overall GDP growth in Q4. • Export growth slows while import gain accelerates. The advance estimate of the U.S. trade deficit in goods widened to $84.8 billion in [...]

• • • These data are reported by the U.S. Department of Energy. The price data can be found in Haver's WEEKLY and DAILY databases. Greater detail on prices, as well as the demand, production and inventory data, along with regional [...]

• Gasoline prices edged up two cents. • Crude oil prices fell 17 cents. • Natural gas prices slipped three cents. The price of regular gasoline edged up to $2.24 per gallon (-12.8% y/y) in the week ended December 28 from $2.22 per [...]

• Headline index of general business conditions slipped for second month. • However, subindexes pointed to a meaningful pickup in activity. • Expectations index also eased. The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas reported that its Texas [...]

Japan's industrial production index gained 0.2% in November as the manufacturing gauge of IP was flat. Still, these results follow five strong months of output gains in mining and manufacturing. The graph shows that year-on-year [...]

The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia's state coincident indexes in November show increasing divergence in performance. While 5 states saw increases of 10 percent or more in the three months since August (Massachusetts remained in [...]