Economy in Brief: July 2009

The Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank indicated that, during July, factory sector activity in the region continued to contract. The rate of decline even quickened versus June as indicated by the Index of General Activity in the [...]

EMU inflation remained tempered in June; the Yr/Yr rate even turned negative! Headline inflation’s trend, however, is actually doing a slow up-creep as energy prices dived and have since begun to rise. But that was through June. [...]

Perhaps the decline in industrial production has moderated this year, but it's tough to say for sure given the very erratic size of the month-to-month declines; big one month, small the next. Last month, industrial output which [...]

German investors and analysts have become somewhat less positive about the economic outlook, six months ahead. In the July survey of the financial community by the ZEW institute, the excess of optimists over pessimists regarding the [...]

According to the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), small business optimism slipped last month from May but the index level of 87.8 still was its highest level since last November. Optimism remained down 1.6% from [...]

The loss of forward momentum in the U.S. economy continued to weaken prices in the energy market. Yesterday, the cash market price for a gallon of regular gasoline fell to $1.60 versus the daily high of $2.04 reached in the middle of [...]

The economic recession may be restraining pricing power generally, but not last month. The PPI for finished goods jumped 1.8% after a 0.2% uptick during May. Consensus expectations had been for a 0.9% increase. The real news, however, [...]

Weak job growth and rising gasoline prices continued last month to constrain consumer spending. A 0.6% increase in June retail sales was near expectations and followed a little-revised 0.5% gain during May. However, except for a rise [...]