Economy in Brief: January 2014

The price for a gallon of regular gasoline prices fell to $3.30 (-0.6% y/y) last week and remained down versus the $3.78 per gallon peak reached in February of last year. Haver Analytics constructs seasonal factors to account for [...]

Activity in the mortgage market firmed appreciably last week. The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that their total mortgage market index rose another 4.7% last week (-54.8% y/y) following the prior week's 11.9% gain. The gain [...]

The ZEW index which is the result of a survey of financial experts in Germany revealed a slight back off and expectations in January compared to December. The back-office light, but again had been expected. The current conditions [...]

The index of consumer sentiment from the Reuters/University of Michigan survey slipped to 80.4 in the mid-month January survey from 82.5 during December. That fell short of expectations for an uptick to 83.5. During the last ten years [...]

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in its Job Openings & Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) that the November job openings rate held m/m at 2.8%. That nevertheless was up from 2.7% twelve months earlier The job openings rate is the [...]

Industrial production turned in a 2.6% increase in 2013, the slowest gain of the economic recovery. During December the expansion continued as output gained 0.3% (3.7% y/y) following a little-revised November increase of 1.1%. Growth [...]

UK retail volumes had been strong all year long but in December sales really jumped. Retail sales rose by 2.6% in December alone. That offset two weak months and propelled sales up over three-months at a 7% annual rate. Sales have [...]

It was a good year for new home builders in 2013. Housing starts of 928,000 were up 18.4% versus 2012 following that year's 28.0% rise. It was the highest level of starts since 2007. During December, however, starts backpedaled 9.8% [...]