Economy in Brief

The U.S. trade deficit in goods and services declined to $52.45 billion in September from a little-revised $55.04 billion in August. A $52.5 billion deficit had been expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. Exports eased 0.9% [...]

The Composite Index of Nonmanufacturing Sector Activity from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) increased more than expected to 54.7 during October from 52.6 in September. August's reading was 56.4. Despite October's rise, the [...]

Retail gasoline prices ticked up to $2.61 per gallon last week (-5.4% year-on-year) from $2.60 in the previous week, Gasoline prices have been range-bound since early August. Haver Analytics constructs factors adjusting for the [...]

EMU manufacturing IP is declining in step with weakness in the manufacturing PMI The Markit manufacturing flash indexes are now replaced with their final gauges. Manufacturing in the EMU is slightly less weak than in its flash but it [...]

Factory orders fell 0.6% (-3.5%) in September following an unrevised 0.1% August dip. A 0.5% decline had been expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. Orders for durable goods fell 1.2% (-5.5% y/y), revised from the advance [...]

The value of construction put-in-place improved 0.1% (-1.9% y/y) during August........... The construction spending figures, some of which date back to 1946, are in Haver's USECON database. The expectations reading can be found in the [...]

Weakness continues in the factory sector. The ISM manufacturing index fell to 47.8 during September........ The ISM figures are diffusion indexes where a reading above 50 indicates expansion. The figures from the Institute for Supply [...]

The market for new motor vehicles softened last month. The Autodata Corporation reported that sales of light vehicles during October declined 3.8% (-4.9% y/y) to 16.58 million units (SAAR) from 17.23 million during September. It was [...]