Economy in Brief: February 2013

The National Federation of Independent Business reported that its January Small Business Optimism Index rose for the second straight month. The advance to 88.9 was from 88.0 in December and 87.5 in November, the lowest reading since [...]

First-time homebuyers saw three necessary ingredients for a favorable buying environment in 2012; low prices, lower interest rates and lower monthly payments. The National Association of Homebuilders reported that their Composite [...]

In the OECD framework the US economy picked up a bit of steam in December. The UK and Japan each showed their ratios to trend above 100 and advanced slightly compared to November. But the sense of growth and momentum form the OECD [...]

To be sure business sentiment in France is weak. But it is also engaged in a long swing higher and it continues to extend that trend with a gain in January despite a number of internal readings that warn us that the strength in this [...]

The U.S. foreign trade deficit during December improved to $38.5 from little-revised $48.6B in November. A $46.0B deficit had been expected. The latest deficit was the least since January 2010. The improvement was due to a 2.1% [...]

Lower unemployment has prompted consumers to spend more than they earn. Consumer credit outstanding matched expectations and gained another $14.6B during December. That followed a downwardly revised $15.9B November increase, according [...]

German IP struggled to a gain in December rising by 0.3% after four straight months of decay. However, there are some seeds of hope for Q1 growth. While there is only one month of gain in the quarter it came at the quarter's end. The [...]

The rate of improvement in the labor market is rising. Initial claims for unemployment insurance notched down to 366,000 (-1.3% y/y) during the week ended February 2 versus a revised 371,000 a week earlier, reported initially as [...]