Economy in Brief: November 2014

Both the chart and the table show evidence of diminishing inflation differentials within the European Monetary Union. Among the plots in the chart, we can see the EMU inflation rate, Italy's inflation rate, France's inflation rate, [...]

Initial claims for jobless insurance during the week ended November 8 increased to 290,000 (-15.2% y/y) after falling to an unrevised 278,000 during the prior week. The Action Economics Forecast Survey expected 280,000 claims in the [...]

The chart depicting sector trends in the European Monetary Union for industrial production shows a withering pattern for all three main sectors: consumer goods, intermediate goods and capital goods as of September. However, overall [...]

Inventories in the wholesale sector increased 0.3% (7.4% y/y) during September following a 0.6% August rise, revised from 0.7%. Durable goods inventories rose a stable 0.8% (9.0% y/y), paced by a 3.4% jump (11.1% y/y) in computers & [...]

The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that their total Mortgage Market Volume Index fell 0.9% last week (-19.2% y/y), the third straight week of decline. Applications to refinance an existing loan fell 1.9% (-23.4% y/y), also the [...]

The International Council of Shopping Centers and Goldman Sachs reported that chain store sales improved 1.5% last week, but the gain only recovered the prior week's decline. Sales began this month roughly equal to October when [...]

The price of a gallon of regular gasoline fell to $2.94 per gallon last week (-7.9% y/y) from $2.99 during the prior week. The latest was its least expensive price since November 2010. To account for seasonal patterns, Haver Analytics [...]

The National Federation of Independent Business reported that its Small Business Optimism Index for October recovered to 96.1 following an unrevised decline to 95.3 during September. The latest level remained near highs of the last [...]