Economy in Brief: May 2015

Total business inventories nudged 0.1% higher during March following a 0.2% February rise, earlier reported as 0.3%. During the last three months, inventory growth slowed to 1.1% (AR) from its high of 7.3% late in 2013. Total business [...]

Import prices declined 0.3% (-10.7% y/y) last month following a 0.2% March fall, revised from -0.3%. The Action Economics Forecast Survey anticipated a 0.2% rise. Prices of petroleum imports increased 1.0% (-47.0% y/y) after a 1.6% [...]

EMU GDP accelerated in Q1 2015 with growth rising to an annual rate of 1.6%, up from 1.3% in Q4 2014. It's not much of a pickup, but it is acceleration. Among the early reporters of GDP in Q1 2015, only two, Finland and Greece, have [...]

Overall retail sales including food services & drinking places during April were little-changed (+0.9% y/y) following a 1.1% March increase, revised from 0.9%. A 0.2% rise had been expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. [...]

The Federal Government reported a $156.7 billion budget surplus during April compared to a $106.9 billion surplus during April of 2014. A $141.0 billion surplus had been expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. For the first [...]

The job openings rate during March eased m/m to 3.4%. It remained up from the recession low of 1.6% but just below the series' high of 3.8% early in 2001. The job openings rate is the number of job openings on the last business day of [...]

The OECD leading indicators for March show slippage in the OECD, the U.S., the U.K., and China. The EMU gauge is unchanged in March while Japan's gauge has moved higher. The U.S. has been slipping since June 2014. Its reading of 99.6 [...]

The National Federation of Independent Business reported that its Small Business Optimism Index improved to 96.9 during April, making up most of its decline to an unrevised 95.2 in March. The figure remained down from the December [...]