Economy in Brief

Retail gasoline prices fell to $2.51 per gallon (+11.1% y/y) in the week ended January 27 from $2.54 per gallon in the previous week. This was the third consecutive weekly decline and the lowest price since the week ended March 11, [...]

The advance reading for November indicated that durable goods orders fell 2.0% m/m (-3.7% y/y) following a 0.2% m/m rise in October, revised down from 0.6%. A 1.5% increase had been expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. [...]

• New single-family home sales tick down to 694,000 in December, meaningfully weaker than the expectations of 727,000. • Downward revisions to October and November leave Q4 unchanged from Q3. Sales of new single-family homes declined [...]

IFO expectations fell to -5.2 in January from -3.1 in December when presented in its diffusion format. The expectations diffusion reading has an 11.6 percentile standing on data back to 1991 and has an ‘equally weak’ 10.2 percentile [...]

The flash composites show some improvement this month- but not much of it. The EMU is dead flat unchanged month-to-month. The German index is higher while the French composite is weaker. However, the U.K. composite swings to expansion [...]

The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City reported that its index of regional manufacturing business activity improved to -1 in January following December's sharp deterioration to -5. These negative readings still indicate declining [...]

Initial claims for unemployment insurance increased 6,000 to 211,000 during the week ended January 18. Claims were unchanged y/y. The previous week's figure was revised to 205,000, from 204,000. The Action Economics Forecast Survey [...]

The Conference Board's Composite Index of Leading Economic Indicators declined 0.3% during December following a 0.1% November uptick, revised from no change. It was the fourth decline in five months. During all of 2019, the leading [...]