Economy in Brief: 2012

European purchasing managers in the service industries continue to report lower activity. In May the PMIs for the service industries in Spain, Italy and France were respectively 41.84, 42,78 and 45.09, compared with 42.11, 42.32 and [...]

The Composite Index for the service and construction sectors from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) ticked up to 53.7 in May following its sharp April decline to 53.5. The figures remained near the lowest level since December. [...]

Chain store sales inched up 0.4% last week (2.8% y/y) following sharp declines in six of the prior seven weeks. Sales began June 1.0% below the May average. During the last ten years there has been a 72% correlation between the y/y [...]

Last week, the pump price of regular gasoline again fell an additional six cents to $3.61 per gallon. Over the last nine weeks, prices have fallen thirty three cents (-4.5% y/y) and retraced roughly one-third of the run-up early this [...]

Spain is in trouble once again. Capital is leaving the country and interest rates are rising, as can be seen in the attached chart. The 10 year bond rate was 6.5% on June 1st and probably higher today. The European Central Bank, the [...]

During April, orders in the manufacturing sector fell 0.6% (+3.5% y/y) versus expectations for a 0.3% rise. The drop added to a 2.1% decline during March, revised from 1.5%. Last month's figure reflected a 1.1% shortfall in [...]

It was a further give-back from last year's strength. Unit sales of light motor vehicles during May fell 4.4% from April to 13.78M (SAAR), according to Autodata Corporation. Sales have fallen meaningfully in two of the last three [...]

The table above focuses on changes in the PMI indices for a number of key EMU and EU members. In May only Italy, Greece and Ireland did not register drops in their respective MFG PMI gauges. Over three months the EMU MFG PMI is lower [...]