Economy in Brief: 2013

The index of total mortgage applications from the Mortgage Banker Association increased 4.8% (19.4% y/y) last week. The rise was led by a 5.2% gain (19.0% y/y) in applications to refinance an existing loan. Home purchase mortgage [...]

Commodity prices are quite sensitive to changes in the economic environment, and the latest signals suggest softening forward momentum. Yesterday's industrial commodity price index, from the Foundation for International Business and [...]

European car registrations continue to be very weak. Short term trends show some lift. But year-over-year trends are lower by 10.3%. The smoothed, 3-month average trend shows a drop of nearly 12% over 12-months and shows less [...]

Industrial production rose 0.4% during March following a 1.1% February increase, earlier reported as a 0.7% rise. A 0.2% gain had been expected in the Action Economics survey. The gain in overall output reflected a 5.4% rise (10.4% [...]

Total housing starts jumped to 1,036M (AR) last month from 968,000 in February, initially reported as 917,000. Expectations had been for 930,000 starts in the Action Economics survey of economists. It was the highest level since June [...]

The consumer price index fell 0.2% (+1.5% y/y) during March and partially reversed February's 0.7% rise. Expectations were for no change in the index. Prices excluding food and energy ticked up 0.1% (1.9% y/y), weaker than the [...]

The Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank reported that its General Business Conditions Index fell during April to 1.3. That followed an unrevised March improvement to 2.0. Haver Analytics constructs a seasonally adjusted figure [...]

In the European monetary union for the month of February the merchandise trade balance improved sharply. Exports in the month edged higher rising by 0.1%. The driving factor for the trade improvement was the decline in imports. [...]