Economy in Brief: March 2008

French industrial orders are hanging tough in an environment where Euro Area growth is fading and the euro is getting stronger. Total new orders and foreign orders are however losing some momentum after spurting strongly in mid-2007 [...]

You can't say the Fed isn't trying. And if the current credit crisis situation turns into something far worse, it's unlikely that historians a generation from now will be able to blame the Fed's present efforts, as they can with the [...]

You can't say the Fed isn't trying. And if the current credit crisis situation turns into something far worse, it's unlikely that historians a generation from now will be able to blame the Fed's present efforts, as they can with the [...]

Recession and lower oil prices worked to sharply shrink the U.S. current account deficit last year. In fact, the 2008 deficit of $673.3 billion was the smallest since 2004. That improvement came despite recessions abroad which limited [...]

German ex-energy MFG prices are showing pressure with three-month inflation surging and pushing up the pace across the major tenor comparisons. Headline MFG price inflation is in the 5% to 6% range over three and six months. It is [...]

UK retail sales surged in February quite unexpectedly. Sales popped by 1.2% in nominal terms and by 0.9% inflation adjusted ex-autos Real sales ex autos are now up a strong 5.1% from one-year ago while nominal sales overall are up [...]

The Conference Board reported that the composite index of leading economic indicators fell 0.3% last month and matched Consensus expectations. A January decline of 0.1% reported initially was revised to show a larger 0.4% drop. It was [...]

The Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank reported that for March, it's Index of General Business Conditions in the manufacturing sector improved slightly to -17.4, about as expected, from -24.0 in February. The latest level was still [...]