Economy in Brief: October 2016

Japan's industrial production gain is at 1.3% month-to-month in August, lower than the preliminary 1.5% that had been reported initially. Still, (as the chart shows) year-over-year gains in IP are beginning to take hold across all [...]

The U.S. Treasury Department reported that during fiscal year 2016 the federal government ran a budget deficit of $587.4 billion versus $438.9 billion in FY'15. It was the largest budget shortfall since FY'13, and brought the deficit [...]

Total business inventories increased 0.2% during August (0.7% y/y) following an unrevised little change in July. Total business sales also increased 0.2%, and were little changed y/y. The inventory-to-sales ratio remained stable at [...]

The headline Final Demand Producer Price Index increased 0.3% (0.7% y/y) during September following unrevised stability in August. A 0.2% rise had been expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. Excluding food & energy, prices [...]

European auto registrations rose in September following a huge gain in August. The August spurt followed a nearly identically massive drop in July. The registration series has become outlandishly volatile. For this reason, we plot [...]

Total retail sales & spending at restaurants increased 0.6% during September (2.7% y/y) following a 0.2% August decline, revised from -0.3%. The increase matched expectations in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. Despite the [...]

Initial unemployment insurance filings held steady at 246,000 (-6.1% y/y) during the week ended October 8. The prior week's level was revised from 249,000. The four-week moving average of claims fell to 249,250, the lowest level since [...]

Japan continues as if cursed with a similar travail to that of Sisyphus. He was condemned to have to roll a huge boulder up a hill only to see it roll back over him to sit the floor of the hill so he was forever to commit the same [...]