Economy in Brief: February 2013

Inventories are not sitting for long on businesses' shelves. Business inventories rose 0.1% (5.5% y/y) during December following a downwardly revised 0.2% November increase. That was the slowest monthly rise in six months. It lowered [...]

. January retail sales ticked up a minimal 0.1% following an unrevised 0.5% December increase. November's increase was raised to 0.5% from 0.4%. The latest uptick matched expectations, according to Action Economics. Retail sales [...]

The Mortgage Bankers Association index of total mortgage applications fell 6.4% (-0.7% y/y) last week to the lowest level in five weeks. Home purchase applications fell 9.5% (17.3% y/y) while applications to refinance an existing loan [...]

U.S. prices in the foreign trade sector recovered last month following December weakness. Import prices increased 0.6% (-1.3% y/y) after a 0.5% December decline, originally reported as -0.1%. The Action Economics survey looked for [...]

Growth in consumer spending throttled back last month following a firm ending to last year. January retail sales ticked up a minimal 0.1% following an unrevised 0.5% December increase. November's increase was raised to 0.5% from 0.4%. [...]

Consumers continue to rein in spending. The latest report from the International Council of Shopping Centers and Goldman Sachs indicated that chain store sales fell 2.5% last week (+2.1% y/y) to the lowest level since February 2012. [...]

The pump price for a gallon of regular gasoline rose notably for the fourth consecutive week. Last week's seven cent increase to $3.61 per gallon (2.5% y/y) pulled them up 36 cents from the December low. The norm for this time of [...]

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in the December Job Openings & Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) report, the job openings rate fell to 2.6% from 2.8% in November, revised from 2.7%. The latest remained up from the recession [...]