Economy in Brief: March 2015

Industrial production ticked 0.1% higher during February following declines in three of the four previous months. January production fell 0.3%, earlier reported as a 0.2% rise. The latest gain was helped by cold winter temperatures [...]

Consumer confidence in Japan has averaged a reading of 39.4 over the last 12 months. This month's pick-up to 40.7 in February from 39.1 in January barely improves on its one-year average. Moreover, the three-month and six-month [...]

The Empire State Factory Index of General Business Conditions fell 6.90 during March after declining to 7.78 in February. The readings from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York remained well below the 27.41 peak reached last [...]

The Federal Reserve's financial accounts data (formerly known as the "flow of funds") for Q4 show total credit market borrowing at $2.47 trillion annual rate, up from $2.21 trillion in Q3. For 2014 as a whole, borrowing was $2.10 [...]

The overall Final Demand Producer Price Index fell 0.5% during February (-0.6% y/y) following an unrevised 0.8% January decline. A 0.2% rise was expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. Prices excluding food & energy also [...]

French sales volumes recovered in February, rising by 1.2% after two straight monthly declines in excess of 1%. In the last four months, French sales volumes have moved by more than 1% in each month: twice up and twice down. This is [...]

The Federal Government reported a $192.327 billion budget deficit during February compared to a $193.532 billion deficit during February of 2014. For the first five months of Fiscal Year 2015, however, the deficit deepened to $386.537 [...]

Total business inventories were roughly stable during January (3.4% y/y), the same as they were in December, earlier reported as +0.1%. During the last three months, inventory growth slowed to 0.3% (AR) from its high of 7.6% late in [...]