Economy in Brief: November 2017

The chart does a good job of showing what inflation has been up to in the euro area. Inflation troughed in early-2016 after making a brief and deeper but shorter-lived trough a year earlier. In the wake of the recession/financial [...]

The Philadelphia Federal Reserve reported that its General Factory Sector Business Conditions Index for November fell to 22.7 after a rise to 27.9 during October. The figure was the lowest in three months and compared to a February [...]

Import prices rose just 0.2% in October (2.5% y/y) following September's 0.8%, revised to a bit more than the initial 0.7% initially reported. The October increase compared to a 0.4% rise expected in the Action Economics Forecast [...]

The Federal Reserve indicated that industrial production rose 0.9% (2.8% y/y) during October following a 0.4% September rise, revised from 0.3%. It was the strongest increase in six months and surpassed expectations for a 0.5% gain in [...]

Initial claims for unemployment insurance increased to 249,000 (4.2% y/y) during the week ended November 11 from an unrevised 239,000 in the prior week. Expectations had been for 234,000 claims in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. [...]

The euro area trade surplus jumped sharply in September, reaching its maximum surplus since the euro area was formed at 25.044 billion euros. The EMU current account surplus as a percentage of GDP reached 2.67% in Q2, the most recent [...]

Total business inventories held steady (3.5% y/y) in September following a little-revised 0.6% August rise. Retail inventories declined 0.9% (+2.2% y/y) led by a 2.4% fall (+4.0% y/y) in motor vehicle inventories. Outside of the auto [...]

The Empire State Manufacturing Index of General Business Conditions for November fell to 19.4 following its unrevised improvement to 30.2 during October. The latest level was the lowest since July, but continued to indicate expansion [...]