Economy in Brief: 2011

Foreign investors purchased $44.8 billion worth of U.S. long-term debt and equity securities in April, according the U.S. Treasury's International Capital ("TIC") data, which were published Wednesday. This followed $54.7 billion worth [...]

Euro-Area trade flows have lost some momentum, but the Zone-wide deficit continues to get larger. Import growth exceeds export growth over 12-months and 6-months but has given ground over 3-months. Still it’s not enough time to tell [...]

The Conference Board reported that its Leading Economic Indicators index rose 0.8% last month following a 0.4% April decline, initially reported as -0.3%. Consensus expectations were for a 0.2% rise in May. Despite the latest [...]

Reported yesterday, the U.S. current account deficit rose in Q1 to $119.3B from a revised $112.2B in Q1 as the gain in imports beat exports. Consensus expectations were for $128.0B. The ratio to GDP was 3.2%, the same as for all of [...]

While headline Zone inflation hits 0% in May and the core edged up by just 0.1% the trends continue to point higher. What is really going on with inflation will play out over the coming months. Since commodity prices have broken their [...]

Like yesterday's Empire State Index, the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank's index of regional factory sector activity turned negative for June. It dropped to -7.7 from an unrevised 3.9 in May. It was the first negative reading since [...]

They fell, but not by much. Initial claims for jobless insurance declined 3.7% during the June 11th week to 414,000 from 430,000 during the week prior, initially reported as 427,000. The latest decline was to the same level as four [...]

New activity in the housing sector continued to languish last month. Housing starts rose just 3.5% during May to 560,000 (AR) following an 8.8% April decline, initially reported as -10.6% . The latest figure remained near the lowest [...]