Economy in Brief: March 2014

The overall final demand PPI slipped 0.1% in February (+0.9% y/y) following a 0.2% gain in January. Producer prices excluding food & energy declined 0.2% (+1.1 y/y), the first decline in six months. Final demand prices for goods (35% [...]

The Federal Government posted a $193.5 billion budget deficit during February of FY 2014. The latest figure was smaller than the Action Economics Forecast Survey expectation of a $215.0 billion deficit. In the first five months of [...]

Total business inventories increased 0.4% in January (3.9% y/y) after a 0.5% December rise. These gains were accompanied a 0.9% decline (+2.5% y/y) in business sales after December's 0.1% slip. As a result, the inventory-to-sales [...]

Import prices increased 0.9% during February following a 0.4% January gain, revised from 0.1%. A 0.5% rise had been expected in the Action Economics survey. A 4.4% jump (-2.6% y/y) in petroleum prices added to an easier 0.2% [...]

In another sign of labor market improvement, initial claims for unemployment insurance fell to 315,000 during the week ended March 8 from 324,000 in the prior week, initially reported as 323,000. The latest level was the lowest since [...]

There is no comparison between the drop in the US unemployment rate and the slow downward crawl of the unemployment rate in Europe. Of course, the US recovery has been ongoing while the European recovery is nascent. But that is part [...]

Retail spending recovered 0.3% last month (1.5% y/y) following a 0.6% January decline, revised from -0.4%. The latest gain roughly matched the 0.2% rise expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. A 0.3% improvement (2.2% y/y) [...]

Industrial production in the European Monetary Union made a surprising decline in January. Yet, it only ticked down by 0.1% but that does mark two consecutive declines. Looking at manufacturing, we see a rebound of 0.3% in January [...]