Economy in Brief: March 2013

Prices in the U.S. foreign trade sector increased during February, for the second consecutive month. Import prices jumped 1.1% (-0.3% y/y), about double the unrevised 0.6% January rise. The Action Economics survey looked for prices to [...]

All of a sudden, business inventories reversed their prior moderation and jumped in January. Total business inventories surged 1.0% (5.6% y/y) during January following an upwardly revised 0.3% December rise. The latest was the [...]

Manufacturing industrial production fell by 0.6% in January. The drop follows a gain of 1.1% in December which follows a 0.8% drop in November. Although manufacturing production is declining over all horizons its pace of decline seems [...]

The consumer regained the inclination to spend last month. February retail sales increased 1.1% (4.6% y/y) following a 0.2% January uptick, earlier reported as 0.1%. The latest rise exceeded expectations for a 0.5% gain, according to [...]

The near-term employment environment should maintain its recent strength, according to Manpower, Inc. On a seasonally adjusted basis, the hiring index did slip to 11, but that left the 2013 outlook average up from 2012. On a not [...]

The OECD indicators paint a picture of an area that is largely making progress but very slow progress- is it progress that is too slow to be effective? This month China, a country not in the OECD area, is faltering as its indicator is [...]

The pump price for a gallon of regular gasoline fell by 5 cents last week to $3.71 per gallon (-3.1% y/y) and added to its 2 cent decline during the prior week. Nevertheless, prices have risen 46 cents (14.0%) since the mid-December [...]

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the January Job Openings & Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) report, the job openings rate ticked up to 2.7% from an unrevised 2.6% in December. However, the figure remained slightly below [...]