Economy in Brief: December 2011

The pump price for regular gasoline fell another two cents last week to $3.27 per gallon. Prices remained the lowest since February when they averaged $3.21. Retail prices usually start to ease this time of year with reduced seasonal [...]

Small businesses are feeling better about the economy. The National Federation of Independent Business indicated that its November index of small business optimism rose to 92.0 from an unrevised 90.2 in October. The job openings [...]

November retail & food service sales increased 0.2% following a little-revised 0.6% October gain. The latest, modest increase disappointed Consensus expectations for a 0.6% rise, according to the Action Economics survey. Nevertheless, [...]

The decay in the OECD LEIs is much more severe for EMU that for the US or for Japan. While the US and Japan indicators point to moderation (but still to trend or above trend growth) the EMU indicators point to a more severe slowing. [...]

China's trade balance declined in November to $14.5 billion from $17.0 billion in October. There was a $17 billion increase in exports, but imports increased $20 billion. Although exports increased, the declining trend in the year to [...]

Industrial commodity prices recently have hovered near the recent lows. At 161.2, the latest price index from the Foundation for International Business and Economic Research (FIBER) was down 4.8% y/y and the six-month growth rate, as [...]

The trends for German trade are pretty clear. Both exports and imports are slowing rapidly. The balance while showing a diminishing surplus, has been largely trendless and volatile since roughly Mid 2009. The ratio of export value to [...]

The University of Michigan's Index of Consumer Sentiment for mid-December rose to 67.7 from 64.1 in November. The latest number was better than Consensus expectations for 65.5 and it was the fourth consecutive monthly rise. Consumers' [...]