Economy in Brief

• NFIB Small Business Optimism Index increases sharply. • Strengthen occurs across the board, including hiring and pricing. The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) Small Business Optimism Index increased to 104.0 in [...]

• Core goods remain firm. • Services prices are little changed. Retail pricing power weakened further last month. The Consumer Price Index increased 0.2% (1.4% y/y) during September following a 0.4% August rise and a 0.6% gain in [...]

• Recent declines are broad-based. • Crude oil costs rise. The Industrial Materials Price Index from the Foundation for International Business and Economic Research (FIBER) eased 1.3% during the last four weeks. Despite the decline, [...]

• Wholesale inventory gain follows three straight months of decline. • Sales continue on upward path for fourth consecutive month. • Inventory-to-sales ratio falls again. Wholesale inventories increased 0.4% during August (-5.2% y/y) [...]

Europe is recovering, but recovery is slowing. In August, 7 of 12 early reporting EMU economies showed increases in industrial production. However, the exceptions were significant as they included two of the four largest EMU [...]

• Housing affordability decreased in August for the fourth consecutive month. • Falling incomes and rising home prices offset record low mortgage interest rates. The National Association of Realtors reported that its Fixed Rate [...]

• Initial claims in state programs fell to lowest level since second week of March. • PUA program initial claims fell further. • The insured unemployment rate fell to 7.5%, lowest level since late-March. Initial claims for [...]

The Bank of France continues to look for a 16% rebound in Q3 GDP even as evidence shows that the sharp gain from Q2 lows is losing momentum and may have reached a plateau of some sort. The virus is circulating in France again causing [...]