Economy in Brief: 2016

Although household confidence was last higher eight and one-half year ago, it was exactly this high back in January of this year. Viewed on a much broader horizon, the current confidence readings sit only at the 50.8th percentile of [...]

Real economic growth last quarter was somewhat firmer than first indicated. GDP grew 0.8% (SAAR, 2.0% y/y) after an initially reported 0.5% gain. Nevertheless, it remained the weakest quarterly rise in a year. A lessened drag on [...]

New orders for durable goods jumped 3.4% during April (1.9% y/y) following a 1.9% March increase, revised from 0.8%. A 0.2% April gain had been expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. Data were revised back to 2001. A 64.9% [...]

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported that pending sales of single-family homes jumped 5.1% in April (4.6% y/y) following a little-revised 1.6% March increase. The April sales volume was the strongest since February [...]

Weak march; weak trends Recent Italian data have been backtracking...big time. Today's retail sales report shows that nominal sales fell by 0.6% in March with real retail sales down by 0.8%. This is the first drop in real retail sales [...]

New orders for durable goods jumped 3.4% during April (1.9% y/y) following a 1.9% March increase, revised from 0.8%. A 0.2% April gain had been expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. Data were revised back to 2001. A 64.9% [...]

Initial claims for unemployment insurance declined to 268,000 (-4.6% y/y) during the week ended May 21 from an unrevised fall to 278,000 during the prior week. The Action Economics Forecast Survey expected 275,000 claims. The four [...]

Month-to-month the German Ifo gauge of industry has snapped back with its headline metric rising to 8.5 in May from 6.4 in April. The business situation index has advanced to 17.1 from 15.3. Expectations reversed course to rise to 0.2 [...]