Economy in Brief: 2012

The Mortgage Bankers Association index of total mortgage applications rose 9.2% (43.1% y/y) during last week. The increase was paced by a 13.0% gain (64.3% y/y) in refinancing. Home purchase applications fell 2.4% w/w (2.0% y/y). [...]

The rebound was modest, but at least it stemmed two months of decline. Housing starts in April rose 2.6% to 717,000 following a 2.6% decline during March, revised from 5.8% reported last month. Starts also slipped 0.3% in February. [...]

The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo reported that housing market activity this month reached a new height. The Composite Housing Market Index for May rose five points to 29, its highest level in four years. The index [...]

Walking a very fragile and thin line, EMU posted no decline in GDP year-over-year or quarter-to quarter by eking out zeros in each measure. Among the key early reporting members Cyprus, Italy, The Netherlands, Portugal and Spain [...]

The Empire State Factory Index of General Business Conditions for May improved to 17.09 from an unrevised 6.56 in April. Consensus expectations had been for a rise to 9.3. Based on these figures, Haver Analytics calculates an index [...]

Consumer prices were unchanged last month versus an expected 0.1% uptick. The figure lessened the y/y increase to 2.3%, down from its peak of 3.9% last September. Prices less food and energy increased a steady 0.2%, also as expected. [...]

Consumers lost their inclination to spend last month. Following four consecutive months of firm increase, retail sales ticked just 0.1% higher during April. That followed little-revised increases of 0.7% and 1.1% in March and [...]

The pump price of regular gasoline again fell four cents last week to $3.75 per gallon. The last six weeks of decline totals nineteen cents (4.7%) and reflects worries about economic growth in Europe and abundant supplies. Haver [...]