Economy in Brief: August 2017

The consumer rediscovered the spending spirit last month. Total retail sales and spending at restaurants increased 0.6% (3.6% y/y) during July following a 0.3% June rise, revised from -0.2%. It was the largest increase this year. A [...]

Euro area industrial production fell in June, marking its first decline since February. Output fell by 0.6%, unwinding about half of its May gain of 1.2%. There were monthly declines in a three major sectors as well as in both [...]

The Industrial Materials Price Index from the Foundation for International Business and Economic Research (FIBER) increased 3.2% during the last four weeks and gained 11.0% during the last twelve months. This adds to the strength [...]

The Consumer Price Index ticked 0.1% higher (1.7% y/y) during July following no change in June. A 0.2% increase had been expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. Prices excluding food & energy gained 0.1% (1.7% y/y) for the [...]

The HIPC shows German inflation up by 0.1% m/m in July. The German CPI shows it up by 0.3% m/m. The German CPI and HIPC indexes now show marked divergences over three months, six months and 12 months. The sequential inflation [...]

The U.S. Treasury Department reported that the federal government so far in FY'17 has run a $566.0 billion budget deficit compared to a $512.0 billion deficit in the first ten months of FY'16. During July alone, the deficit of $42.9 [...]

Both French and Italian IP seem to be on growth paths in the wake of the release of their respective industrial production reports for June. In the case of France, there may be a bit more need to hold your nose when reading through [...]

Initial unemployment insurance applications rose to 244,000 (-9.4% y/y) during the week ended August 5, up from 241,000 during the prior week which was revised from 240,000. The expectations were for 240,000 claims in the Action [...]