Economy in Brief

Unlike the Federal Reserve and most central banks, the European Central Bank operates with a single policy directive. That directive is to keep inflation just under 2%. The Fed has a 2% inflation target but also the mandate to achieve [...]

The Composite Index of Nonmanufacturing Sector Activity from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) increased to 55.0 during December from 53.9 in November. It was the highest level since August but remained below the high of 60.8 [...]

Factory orders decreased 0.7% m/m (-1.5% y/y) in November following a slightly downwardly revised 0.2% m/m increase in October (initially reported as +0.3% m/m). This was the third monthly decline in the past four months. The November [...]

The U.S. trade deficit in goods and services declined to $43.09 billion during November from $46.94 billion in October, revised from $47.20 billion. It was the smallest deficit since October 2016. A $43.9 billion deficit had been [...]

Retail gasoline prices inched up to $2.58 per gallon (15.2% y/y) last week from $2.57 per gallon in the previous week. Last week's price roughly equaled last year's average. Typically, gasoline prices weaken this time of year and [...]

The composite PMIs that weight the services and manufacturing sectors to arrive at an overall PMI standing continue to show a great deal of weakness in December. The unweighted average percentile standing for this month's PMIs by [...]

The Industrial Materials Price Index from the Foundation for International Business and Economic Research (FIBER) increased 2.6% during the four weeks ended Friday and 3.6% over the last three months. The price index increased 1.4% [...]

The Autodata Corporation reported that December sales of light vehicles fell 1.9% from November (-3.3% y/y) to 16.87 million units (SAAR). Earlier figures were revised. For the full year 2019 sales of 17.00 million units compared to [...]