Economy in Brief: February 2021

• Pandemic-related initial claims reach largest amount in almost five months. • Continuing claims in regular state programs continue downtrend. • Insured jobless rate unchanged. Initial claims for unemployment insurance rose 13,000 in [...]

• Total starts back away from 2006 high. • Single-family housing starts are notably weak. • Building permits increase for third straight month. Strength in home building waned last month. Housing starts declined 6.0% (-2.3% y/y) [...]

• Import prices rose 1.4% in January with fuel prices up 7.4%. • Export prices increased 2.5%, the largest monthly increase in the series history. • Higher prices for industrial supplies were a key driver of the increases for both [...]

• • PREVIOUS>>>>>Total retail sales including food service & drinking establishments declined 0.7% (+2.9% y/y) during December.......... The retail sales data can be found in Haver's USECON database. The Action Economics forecast is [...]

• Business inventories rise for six straight months. • Sales increase after holding steady. • Total business inventory-to-sales ratio remains at six-year low. Total business inventories increased 0.6% during December (-2.6% y/y) [...]

• Housing market activity remains below earlier high. • Improvement in the Northeast accompanies mixed performance elsewhere. The Composite Housing Market Index from the National Association of Home Builders-Wells Fargo improved 1.2% [...]

Passenger car registrations fell sharply across Europe in January. France logged the smallest fall on the monthly drop of just 1.5% while Spain at -54.7% took the largest month-to-month hit. The pace of sales in January in Europe is [...]

• Gasoline prices surged 13.6% m/m. • Core goods prices rose 0.8%, largest monthly increase. • Service prices driven upward as trade services rebounded. The Producer Price Index for final demand rose 1.3% (1.7% y/y) in January [...]