Economy in Brief

The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City reported that its index of regional manufacturing business activity declined to -6 in August after falling to -1 in July. These negative figures suggest declining business activity overall and [...]

EMU readings for August show a clear but minor sense of stabilization. The service sector reading that had been rising has slowed and is back to its June level. Manufacturing's PMI moved higher in August but still below its June [...]

The Conference Board's Composite Index of Leading Economic Indicators increased 0.5% (1.6% y/y) during July following a 0.1% June decline, revised from -0.3%. It was the largest rise since September 2018. A 0.2% increase had been [...]

Initial unemployment insurance claims fell to 209,000 (-2.1% y/y) during the week ended August 17 from the prior week's 221,000, revised from 220,000. The Action Economics Forecast Survey expected a lesser decline to 218,000 initial [...]

Spain's trade deficit on goods transactions fell into a smaller deficit in June at -0.9 billion euros compared to -3.1 billion euros in June. Exports have had a pick-up in recent months while imports have languished and advanced at a [...]

The National Association of Realtors reported that sales of existing homes increased 2.5% during July to 5.420 million (0.6% y/y) from 5.290 million in June, revised from 5.270 million. Sales were 9.9% higher than the recent low [...]

The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that its total Mortgage Applications Index slipped 0.9% (+73.1% y/y) during the week ending August 16 following a 21.7% surge during the prior week. Applications to refinance a loan improved [...]

U.K. industrial orders, output and pricing show less weakness than the one-month lagged EU Commission metric or the Markit manufacturing metric. But ranked over a shorter span, since 2015, the U.K. data appear extremely weak and they [...]