Economy in Brief: 2011

Manufacturing orders recovered 0.8% during May after a 0.9% April drop. Consensus expectations were for a 0.9% rise. For durable goods only, orders rose 2.1% which was revised up slightly from 1.9% reported initially. Nondurable goods [...]

The value of construction spending fell 0.6% during May and duplicated its downwardly revised 0.6% April drop. Though the rate of decline has slowed, activity's downtrend is in its fifth year. Figures back through 2009 were moderately [...]

The pace of activity in the U.S. manufacturing sector didn't deteriorate last month, but it didn't improve much either. That's the message from this morning's report on the Composite Index of activity in the factory sector. The [...]

The MFG PMIs tell a story of slowing growth in the Zone. Every nation’s PMIs are now is a declining mode. While Greece saw some improvement in its index this month (and how it did that we will never know) it has the lowest percentile [...]

German retailing weakens - German retail sales (real sales ex-autos) fell by 3% in May (yes, M/M) a surprisingly sharp drop, taking the Yr/Yr growth rate to -2.9%. Meanwhile, auto registrations did move sharply higher in May as oil [...]

Initial claims for jobless insurance held roughly steady at 428,000 during the June 25th week versus an unrevised 429,000 during the week prior. The latest compared to Consensus expectations for 422,000 claims. The four-week moving [...]

The EU indices show another month of weakness as the overall sentiment index dropped for both EU and EMU as a run of weakness enveloped most of the large member countries. Spain is the exception and Spain alone is up to its cycle peak [...]

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported that pending sales of existing single-family homes rose 8.2% last month after a little-revised 11.3% April decline. Despite the monthly improvement sales this quarter remained down [...]