Economy in Brief: March 2013

The accompanying chart shows the incredible impact of the ongoing austerity programs in Europe. In high-inflation Italy the inflation rate has plunged. In low-inflation Germany inflation rate has continued to work lower. The current [...]

Industrial production jumped 0.7% (2.5% y/y) during February following a 0.1% January uptick, earlier reported as a 0.1% dip. A 0.4% gain had been expected in the Action Economics survey. Firmer factory sector production led the [...]

The University of Michigan's Index of Consumer Sentiment in mid-March retreated to 71.8 (-5.8% y/y) from 77.6 in February. The latest was the lowest level since December 2011. The figure remained down versus the November high of 82.7 [...]

The consumer price index jumped 0.7% (2.0% y/y) during February following two months of having been unchanged. Expectations were for a 0.5% rise. Prices excluding food and energy matched expectations and rose 0.2% (2.0% y/y). The [...]

The U.S. current account deficit lessened at the end of last year to $110.4B from $112.4B in Q3. A deeper deficit of $113.0B had been expected. The easing left the deficit to GDP ratio at 2.8%, its least in roughly three years. For [...]

European employment trends show that employment in the Zone is at a seven year low. Even with stagnant population growth this is not a good development. Over the last year the unemployment rate for the Zone has gone up by 0.7 [...]

Signs of improvement in the U.S. labor market are continuing to surface.Initial claims for jobless insurance fell to 332,000 (-8.5% y/y) during the week ended March 9 versus 342,000 a week earlier (revised from 342,000). Consensus [...]

The producer price index for finished goods gained 0.2% last month (1.8% y/y), the same as during January. The latest rise matched expectations. Also, as expected, there was a 0.2% gain (1.7% y/y) in prices excluding food & energy [...]