Economy in Brief: 2008

Initial claims for unemployment insurance fell last week to 432,000 from 445,000 during the prior week. Consensus expectations had envisioned a slightly smaller decrease. Claims for both last week and the week before were revised [...]

UK retail sales showed a sharp bump up in May of this year. Since that time it has been all downhill for the three major trends in retail sales: 3-mo, 6-mo and Yr/yr. The trends generally display a progressive deterioration in the [...]

But has Europe already been flattened? The services and MFG PMIs (form NTC/Markit) for EMU flattened out this month falling month-to-month but barely falling. As a result the services and MFG PMIs are at the bottom of their recent [...]

Initial claims for unemployment insurance fell last week to 432,000 from 445,000 during the prior week. Consensus expectations had envisioned a slightly smaller decrease. Claims for both last week and the week before were revised [...]

The all industries index dropped in June, its first drop in four months. The index still stands in the 88th percentile (top 12 percent) of its range. Construction fell again dropping to the bottom of its range. The all important [...]

French orders edged higher in June as weak domestic orders were offset by strong foreign orders. Foreign orders were by a robust 2.6% m/m in June. Still for the full quarter orders are falling. Total orders are off at an11.3% annual [...]

The recent price declines in oil and other energy products have been noticeable (see graph) and welcome, giving evident support to the stock market and consumer sentiment. In the U.S., the moving force in petroleum prices has been [...]

Mortgage applications fell 1.5% in the week ended August 15, following a like decline the week before, together basically erasing a 2.8% increase in the August 1 week. This "Market Composite Index" stood at 419.3 in the latest week, [...]