Economy in Brief: August 2019

U.K. industrial orders, output and pricing show less weakness than the one-month lagged EU Commission metric or the Markit manufacturing metric. But ranked over a shorter span, since 2015, the U.K. data appear extremely weak and they [...]

The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia reported that its Nonmanufacturing Business Index of current conditions at the company level rose to 32.5 in August from 24.6 in July. It was the highest reading since April. Deteriorating, [...]

The U.S. pump price for gasoline eased to $2.60 per gallon (-7.9% y/y) last week from the prior week's $2.62 per gallon. Prices have fallen for five consecutive weeks. Haver Analytics calculates a series which is adjusted for the [...]

Declines in factory sector production continue to put downward pressure on prices. The Industrial Materials Price Index from the Foundation for International Business and Economic Research (FIBER) declined 3.2% during the last four [...]

Japan's trade deficit came in at 127 billion yen in July, an enlargement from the 34 billion yen in June. Neither nominal exports nor imports show any clear patterns in the changes over 12 months, six months and three months. Nominal [...]

New building activity fell for the third straight month during July. Housing starts declined 4.0% (+0.6% y/y) to 1.191 million (SAAR) after falling to 1.241 million in June, revised from 1.253 million. Starts in May also were revised [...]

The Composite Housing Market Index from the National Association of Home Builders-Wells Fargo rose to 66 in August from 65 during July. The index has been trending higher since its December 2018 low, but remains below the expansion [...]

The Empire State Manufacturing Index of General Business Conditions rose to 4.3 during July....... The Empire State figures are diffusion indexes, which are calculated by subtracting the percent of respondents reporting declines from [...]