Economy in Brief: January 2011

Higher oil prices continued to push up U.S. import prices. During December, import prices jumped another 1.1% after an upwardly revised 1.5% November increase, initially reported as 1.2%. The increase roughly matched Consensus [...]

Japan's LEI has been gaining some traction. It shows a more complete recovery in gear than does the OECD LEI which has not rebounded as much in the last year or so as the Japanese national gauge. Japan's own LEI gauge shows a recent [...]

The British Chamber of Commerce quarterly survey of the manufacturing and service sectors of business for the last quarter of 2010 is more optimistic than the third quarter survey that reflected doubts about the new government's [...]

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in its Job Openings & Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) that the November job openings rate slipped to 2.4% from an unrevised 2.5% during October. These levels remained improved versus the recession [...]

Consumers seem to have lost their inclination to spend shown during the holiday season. Sales at chain stores fell 3.2% last week and retraced all of the increase during December. January sales began 1.4% below the December average. [...]

Energy prices continue upward as the economy and the demand for energy products improves. Last week, the pump price for regular gasoline rose another two cents to $3.09 per gallon following the prior week's two cent rise. Prices were [...]

Following several months of upward movement, small business optimism slipped last month. Nevertheless, the National Federation of Independent Business indicated that their index of small business optimism, at 92.6 in December versus [...]

Five countries--France, Finland, Sweden, Slovakia and Turkey--reported Industrial Production data for November, 2010, today. Even though the data are seasonally adjusted, the month to month data for industrial production still show [...]