Economy in Brief: 2007

Last month, U.S. sales of light vehicles fell for the sixth consecutive month this year. The 3.4% m/m decline to an annualized selling rate of 15.6M units, according to the Autodata Corporation, was to the lowest level since October [...]

German sales remain weak and it’s not all VAT at this point. Italy is weak. France is robust. Overall Euro area retail sales volume fell by 0.5% in May and are up by just 0.1% over three months and off by 0.2% over six months. Nonfood [...]

German sales remain weak and it’s not all VAT at this point. Italy is weak. France is robust. Overall Euro area retail sales volume fell by 0.5% in May and are up by just 0.1% over three months and off by 0.2% over six months. Nonfood [...]

The unemployment rates for both the twenty-seven countries in the Euro Union and the thirteen countries in the subdivision--the Euro Area--declined to 7.0% in May from 7.1% in April. These rates are shown in the first chart. The [...]

Chain store sales last week fell moderately for the second week, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC)-UBS. That pulled sales for all of June 0.5% below the May average which fell 0.7% from April.

Factory inventories rose 0.4% during May after the moderate 0.4% gain in April. The gains left the y/y growth at 4.3%. Slower than the 6.4% rate of accumulation during all of 2006. Much of the slowdown has occurred in inventories of [...]

The ECB, like the Fed, prefers to talk in terms of a price measure broader than the PPI. The PPI is just domestically produced goods and therefore omit import prices and services prices - services are a big missing piece in any [...]

The ECB, like the Fed, prefers to talk in terms of a price measure broader than the PPI. The PPI is just domestically produced goods and therefore omit import prices and services prices - services are a big missing piece in any [...]