Economy in Brief: 2012

The German trade deficit is stabilizing in the €13bln to €14bln range. Nominal export and import growth rates are accelerating sharply; led by import growth. And real export orders are continuing to grow. However Yr/Yr trends on [...]

Chain store sales fell 0.8% last week (+3.3% y/y), the third decline in the last four weeks. Sales began May 0.8% below April when purchases rose 3.4% m/m. During the last ten years there has been a 72% correlation between the y/y [...]

The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that its index of total mortgage applications rose 1.7% w/w to 710.4 (43.1% y/y). Home purchase applications jumped 3.4% w/w (1.1% y/y). Applications to refinance increased 1.3% (64.6% y/y). [...]

During the last few months industrial commodity prices have fluctuated in a relatively narrow range. Nevertheless, at 170.3 the latest price index from the Foundation for International Business and Economic Research (FIBER) was 7.6% [...]

German IP jumped by 2.8% month-to-month in March rebounding from a small decline of 0.3% in February. As result of this strength IP is now up at a 15.8% annual rate over three months and is up by 0.2% in the first quarter over Q4. In [...]

The rate of labor market improvement picked up as indicated by the March job openings rate. It rose to 2.7%, the highest level since July 2008, and February was unrevised at 2.6%. The figures are in the Bureau of Labor Statistics Job [...]

The pump price of regular gasoline fell another four cents last week to $3.79 per gallon, down for the fifth straight week. Haver Analytics' seasonally-adjusted price for regular declined twelve cents to $3.58 per gallon, also the [...]

The National Federation of Independent Business reported that its Optimism Index improved to 94.5 last month from an unrevised 92.5 in March. The latest level matched the economic recovery high of last February. The percentage [...]