Economy in Brief

The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index for November eased 0.5% (-8.0% y/y) to 125.5 after a little-revised 0.2% October decline. It was the fifth decline in the last six months and left the confidence level 9.1% below its [...]

Sales of new single-family homes slipped 0.7% m/m (+31.6% y/y) in October to 733,000 units SAAR. However, the 0.7% m/m decline to 701,000 initially reported for September was revised up significantly to a 4.5% m/m rise to 738,000 [...]

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Price Index increased 0.6% in September, following an unrevised 0.2% August increase. During the last twelve months, home prices improved 5.1%, a deceleration from last year's 6.7% full-year [...]

Retail gasoline prices eased to $2.58 per gallon last week (+1.6% y/y) from $2.59 in the previous week. Prices typically weaken this time of year. Haver Analytics constructs factors to adjust for the seasonal variation in gasoline [...]

The behavior of the U.S. economy so far in 2019 reminds me of its behavior in 1967. The pace of U.S. economy activity slipped significantly in early 1967, but an “official” recession was narrowly avoided thanks to some timely easing [...]

The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas reported in its Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey that the General Business Activity Index of -1.3 during November compares to October's -5.1. It remained down sharply from the February 2018 high of [...]

The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago reported that its National Activity Index fell to -0.71 during October from an unrevised -0.45 in September. It was the lowest level in six months. The three-month moving average smoothes out [...]

The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City reported that its index of regional manufacturing business activity remained below zero for the fifth consecutive month. During November, the index held steady at -3. The negative figures [...]