Economy in Brief: November 2016

The U.K. claimant count ticked higher as the claimant rate of unemployment remained stuck at 2.3%. The change in the number unemployed crept slightly higher in October. The net increase in claimants over three months was 25.2K [...]

Energy product prices continued to decline last week. Regular gasoline prices declined to $2.18 per gallon (+0.3% y/y) last week, the lowest level since mid-August. Prices remained down versus a 2014 high of $3.71 per gallon. Haver [...]

Total business inventories increased 0.1% during September (0.6% y/y) following an unrevised 0.2% August gain. Total business sales improved 0.7%, and were up 0.8% y/y. The inventory-to-sales ratio eased to 1.38, down sharply from [...]

Import prices improved 0.5% during October (-0.2% y/y) following a 0.2% September increase, revised from 0.1%. A 0.4% increase had been expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. These figures are not seasonally adjusted. A [...]

The Empire State Factory Index of General Business Conditions for November posted its first reading above zero since July. It rose to 1.5 from -6.8 in October. Expectations had been for -3.0 in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. [...]

GDP growth plods ahead in the EMU in Q3 2016. Its 1.4% annualized quarterly pace beats the Q2 pace of 1.2%, but year-on-year the growth rate stays at 1.6%. Mixed results Quarter-to-quarter, there are slowdowns logged in Germany, [...]

Total retail sales & spending at restaurants increased 0.8% during October (4.3% y/y) following a 1.0% September rise, revised from 0.6%. A 0.6% increase had been expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. The rise lifted [...]

While manufacturing PMIs have stabilized and showed some growth in the EMU, the industrial production index is lower in September and has fallen in two of the last three months. IP is up on balance over 12 months, but the last 12 [...]