Economy in Brief: 2012

It's a close to official as it can get. The Italian consumer is really fed up. While Italy is still one of the countries with one of the richer citizenries in Europe its technocrat government and the situation in Europe has driven the [...]

New home sales recovered 3.3% in April to 343,000. This gain partially reversed March's 7.3% fall, revised from 7.1% reported originally, and put April up 9.9% from a year ago. The April volume exceeded the consensus expectations for [...]

Existing home sales gained 0.6% in April (+9.7% y/y) to a 4.970M annual rate, according to data compiled by the National Association of Realtors; March sales were revised upward and now show a marginal 0.2% decrease instead of 0.6% [...]

The pump price of regular gasoline fell another four cents last week to $3.71 per gallon. The last seven weeks of decline totals twenty three cents (-5.8%). Haver Analytics' seasonally-adjusted price for regular declined six cents to [...]

Sales of existing homes rose 3.4% last month to a 4.620 annual rate (10.0% y/y) from a revised 4.470M during March, last month reported as 4.480M. Sales of existing single-family homes alone increased 3.0% last month to 4.090M, up [...]

The effects of the earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan last year are still being felt. The disruptions in production led to a decline in exports and a rise in imports. Japan's typical trade surplus, was turned into a deficit [...]

The I.G. Metall union and employers agreed to a 4.3% pay rise, a compromise between the union's demand of a 6.5% raise and management's offer of a 2.6% raise. It was also the largest pay rise since the 5.4% negotiated, twenty years [...]

For 2013, the National Association for Business Economics expects real GDP growth of 2.7% versus 2.8% forecast in February. That follows expected 2.3% growth in this year, little changed from 2.4% forecasted earlier. Expectations for [...]