Economy in Brief: 2019

The pump price for a gallon of regular gasoline in the U.S. fell again in the week ended July 29 to $2.72 (-4.6% y/y) from $2.75 the previous week. This is the lowest price in five weeks. Haver Analytics calculates a series which is [...]

Japan's economy is in the process of navigating a number of potentially wicked twists and turns of fate, some of its own making and some thrust upon it in a region gone topsy turvy. For now retail sales are edging higher year-on-year [...]

The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas reported in its Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey that the General Business Activity Index of -6.3 during July compared to June's -12.1. It was the third consecutive monthly reading which was [...]

PPI developments once again underscore that inflation pressure is not building in the EMU. Mario Draghi is getting progressively more concerned about the European situation and condition. Draghi's term is coming to an end and he is [...]

Economic growth slowed last quarter, but not as much as expected. Real GDP increased 2.1% (AR) in Q2'19 (2.3% y/y) following an unrevised 3.1% increase during Q1. A 1.8% gain had been expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. [...]

Initial claims for unemployment insurance decreased 10,000 to 206,000 (-5.1% year-on-year) during the week ending July 20th from an unrevised 216,000. Two weeks ago, claims dropped to 208,000, though it included the July 4th holiday [...]

The IFO climate gauge has fallen to its weakest reading since July 2013. On the two ranking columns in the table, we see it has the lowest reading since January 2015, but it has a much less weak if still equivocal reading with a near- [...]

The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City indicated that its index of regional manufacturing sector business activity slipped to -1 in July after falling to zero in June. It was the first negative reading since August 2016 and below the [...]