Economy in Brief: 2011

German new orders for manufacturing rose 2.4% in April to 121.5 (2005=100) from 119.0 in March. They almost made up for the 2.5% decline in March and are now only 6% below the pre recession peak of 129.5 reached in November, 2007. [...]

The ex-construction PPI index rose as much in April as it did in March. The three-months growth rate of the PPI edged slightly below that of the six month pace but both were elevated relative to the 12-month pace which at 6.7% is [...]

Although there is some improvement in the world wide supply of wheat, the price has begun to creep up again, Kansas city hard wheat, for example, has risen 5% in the last month and is now $9.06 a bushel. World supply and demand for [...]

The May Composite Index for the service and construction sectors from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) rose to 54.6 from 52.8 in April. Nevertheless, the index remained near the lowest since February 2010. The figure roughly [...]

There is slippage this month in the European services sector. At this writing the US report on 'services' is still unreleased but the previous US report for April on NonMFG activity in the US took a huge drop one month ahead of the [...]

The two headline figures from the May employment report were dreary. The Bureau of Labor Statistics stated that the 54,000 worker rise in payrolls was the weakest in nearly twelve months and noted that the unemployment rate rose to [...]

Reported yesterday, the value of construction spending rose 0.4% during April following a 0.1% uptick in March, revised down from a 1.4% gain reported last month. Consensus expectations as indicated by Action Economics called for a [...]

The most topical car registration data are for Spain and Italy in May (not in the table). Sales in Italy rebounded by 3.1% in May as sales in Spain continued weak and fell by 0.3% in May. France and Spain are seeing government [...]