Economy in Brief: February 2004

Initial claims for jobless insurance rose last week by 17,000 to 356,000. The prior week's level was revised down. Consensus expectations had been for claims of 342,000. The four-week moving average of initial claims was unchanged at [...]

Unit sales of light vehicles fell 9.1% m/m in January to 16.13M, the lowest level since October. Consensus expectations were for sales of 17.0M. Revised seasonal factors altered the monthly figures for 2003. Car sales fell 7.4% m/m to [...]

The Russian economy grew in real terms by 7.3% in 2003 according to the first estimate for 2003 released by the State Committee of the Russian Federation. Since the upheavals of 1996 and 1998 economic growth has proceeded at a good [...]

Chain store sales fell 1.3% last week, according to the ICSC-UBS survey, and gave back all of the prior week's 1.1% pop. Nevertheless, sales for the full month of January rose 1.6% versus December. During the last ten years there has [...]

Manufacturing in the Euro-zone continued to expand in January according to the 2000 purchasing managers surveyed by the NTC Research Ltd. for Reuters Group Plc. The rise of 0.25% in January marked the fifth successive month of [...]

Personal income rose an expected 0.2% (+3.8% y/y) in December, just under the average gain during the last five months. Personal disposable income also rose 0.2% (4.7% y/y), but that was an acceleration from the average five-month [...]