Economy in Brief: June 2011

The good news about today's reported 0.2% increase in the May CPI was that it was the smallest monthly gain since November. The discouraging part of the report was that less food & energy, the 0.3% increase was the firmest since 2008. [...]

The French trade picture is showing steady slippage. The trade deficit is eroding steadily. Exports have slowed sharply from their year ago growth rate of 17.7% to 7.2%; the sequential growth rates for exports are somewhat mixed but [...]

The boom in China is not about to bust. The weakness in China's industrial production and retail sales evident in April was reversed in May. After declining 0.57% in April from March, industrial production rose 0.53% in May from [...]

The U.S. Commerce Department reported that business inventories rose 0.8% in April after a revised 1.3% March increase, originally reported as 1.0%. Quick inventory accumulation nevertheless left the inventory-to-sales ratio of 1.26 [...]

The U.S. producer price index for finished goods increased just 0.2% last month, the weakest rise since July. The gain roughly matched Consensus expectations for a 0.1% uptick. Offsetting each other were a 1.5% rise in energy prices [...]

Total retail & food service sales slipped 0.2% last month after a 0.3% April increase and a 0.8% March gain, both revised down slightly from 0.5% and 0.9%, respectively. The May decline roughly matched Consensus expectations for a [...]

The National Federation of Independent Business indicated that its index of small business optimism fell to 90.0 from an unrevised 91.2 in April. The latest remained the lowest level since September. Deterioration amongst the sub- [...]

The Economic and Social Research Institute of Japan released, today, data on machinery orders for April. Although total orders were up 3.1% from March, the HEADLINE series--Private Sector Orders excluding Volatile Orders (ships and [...]