Economy in Brief: January 2012

Full-year 2011 was moderately improved for new home building, but was not great. In December only, the level of housing starts overall fell to 657,000 (AR) from an unrevised 685,000 in November. The latest fell short of expectations [...]

There was a pickup in inflation last year, but the very latest figures show the pressure easing. The December Consumer Price Index was unchanged following a marginal November decline. The latest compared to expectations for a 0.1% [...]

The pump price for regular gasoline rose one penny last week to $3.39 per gallon, adding to the prior week's eight cent gain. Retail prices usually decline this time of year with reduced seasonal demand. To account for this pattern, [...]

The housing sector is convincingly on the mend according to the latest National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo report on housing market activity. The Composite Housing Market Index for January rose another four points to 25, [...]

Industrial production recovered 0.4% (2.9% y/y) during December following an unrevised 0.2% November slip. The latest gain roughly matched Consensus expectations, according to Action Economics. Factory sector output rose a stronger [...]

Overall inflation may be tame but trouble was brewing last year. The December producer price index for finished goods slipped 0.1% during December following an unrevised 0.3% November gain. The figure compared to Consensus [...]

The OECD leading indicators have not thrown in the towel on Japan’s growth. But Japan’s trends continue to haunt the outlook. IP for mining and MFG fell by 2.7% in November. MFG output alone fell by 2.7% in November. The chart on [...]

The Zew expectations reading has made a sharp turn higher from a reading of -53.8 in December tone of -21.6 in January. This the largest one month jump in the expectations reading in the history of the series back to 1992. The current [...]