Economy in Brief: July 2011

Euro-Area inflation was still irregular in June. Among the large countries Italy had the largest monthly rise at 0.2% and Spain showed the largest drop at -0.3%. But the good news is that headline inflation is decelerating across [...]

Initial claims for jobless insurance fell last week to 405,000 versus a revised 427,000 during the week prior, initially reported as 418,000. The Labor Department indicated that the latest figure reflected 11,500 claims due to the [...]

The U.S. producer price index for finished goods fell 0.4% last month, pulled down by a 2.8% drop in energy. The figure compared to Consensus expectations for a 0.2% decline. The energy price decline reflected an 8.8% drop (NSA, [...]

Total retail & food service sales inched up 0.1% last month following a -0.1% slip during May and a 0.2% April rise, earlier reported as -0.2% and 0.3%, respectively. The June decline roughly matched Consensus expectations for no- [...]

Good news for consumers on the energy price front was interrupted last week as the pump price for regular gasoline rose six cents to $3.64 per gallon. Since their peak, however, prices still were down 33 cents. Pump prices usually [...]

Pricing strength receded further amongst internationally traded goods last month. Overall U.S. import prices fell 0.5% after a little-revised 0.1% May increase. The decline roughly matched Consensus expectations for a 0.7% drop. [...]

US and EMU IP in MFG track each other’s respective paths. The world economy clearly is very tightly connected. One up shot of this is that there is not as much gain from diversification as in the past. Of course we are comparing two [...]

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported yesterday in its Job Openings & Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) that the May job openings rate held steady m/m at 2.2%. The latest reading remained improved versus the recession low of 1.6% but [...]