Economy in Brief: 2010

Forward momentum behind U.S. unit sales of light vehicles eased during April and sales fell 4.8% to 11.21M units (SAAR) from 11.78M in March. Nevertheless, sales remained up by nearly one-quarter from the recession low. April sales [...]

World wide, purchasing managers in the manufacturing industry have become increasingly optimistic. The Markit Economic Survey expresses the responses of the purchasing managers in the form of diffusion indexes that are based on [...]

Construction activity remains depressed. The negligible 0.2% uptick in March after the 2.1% February collapse left it near the lowest level since 2003. The latest rise barely beat Consensus expectations for a 0.3% dip. Total private [...]

Employment growth is helping to underpin the recovery in factory sector activity. According to the Institute for Supply Management, the level of activity grew last month at the fastest pace since June of 2004. The April composite [...]

U.S. consumers love to spend, even if they don't have the money. Personal consumption expenditures increased an expected 0.6% during March as spending grew faster than income for the second month in a row. During the last six months [...]

U.S. consumers love to spend, even if they don't have the money. Personal consumption expenditures increased an expected 0.6% during March as spending grew faster than income for the second month in a row. During the last six months [...]

European unemployment continues to rise in March and the figure reported for 2010 in-Q1 in Spain reached 20%; We report monthly data in the table above. Only Germany shows any hint of a turn to lower rates of unemployment. Of course [...]

A slower rate of inventory replenishment was warranted because products weren't leaving the shelves quickly. As a result, real GDP growth eased last quarter to 3.2% after the 5.6% jump during 4Q '09. The latest roughly matched [...]