Economy in Brief: November 2013

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported that its Empire State Factory Index of General Business Conditions for November fell to -2.21 from an unrevised 1.52 in October. It was the first negative reading since May and [...]

I know it is cynical to write about the second quarterly EMU GDP rise after six consecutive quarters of declines and to feature a chart of the growth of some of the weakest EMU members. After seeing GDP broke out of its declining ways [...]

Nonfarm business sector productivity matched expectations and grew 1.9% last quarter, roughly the same as during Q2, revised up from no-change. Over the past year, however, worker productivity has been unchanged. Output rose 3.7% last [...]

Initial claims for jobless insurance fell to 339,000 (-24.8% y/y) during the week ended November 9 from the previous week's 341,000, revised up from 336,000. Expectations had been for 330,000 claims. The four-week moving average of [...]

The U.S. foreign trade deficit increased sharply to $41.8 billion in September compared to a little-revised $38.7 billion during August. The latest figure was the deepest since May. A $39.0 billion deficit had been expected in the [...]

The Federal Government ran a $91.6 billion budget deficit during October of FY 2014. During October of last year the government ran a $120.0 billion deficit. The latest figure compared to the Action Economics Forecast Survey [...]

EMU industrial production has fallen in eleven of the past 20 months. The chart shows that year-over-year IP growth has been snaking along, just below zero, for some time. Other metrics like the manufacturing and services PMIs from [...]

The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that their total mortgage market index fell 1.8% last week (-46.6% y/y). Applications to refinance existing loans were off 2.3% and remained down by roughly one-half versus November 2012. Home [...]