Economy in Brief: November 2015

The job openings rate rose to 3.7% during September from 3.6% during August. The latest figure compared to 3.2% one year earlier and remained near the highest level of the economic recovery. The private sector job openings rate of [...]

Lackluster performance within the factory sector has left industrial commodity prices under pressure. The industrial commodity price index from the Foundation for International Business and Economic Research (FIBER) deteriorated by [...]

Money supply growth in Japan steadied in October as M2 was up 0.2% after being flat in September and up by 0.5% in August. M3 growth was up by 0.1% and M1 growth gained 0.4% in October, but both series slowed compared to August only [...]

Inventories at the wholesale level rose 0.5% during September (4.5% y/y) following a 0.3% August increase. The rise was paced by a 1.3% jump (8.4% y/y) in furniture and a 0.5% rise (12.8% y/y) in automotive inventories.. Computer & [...]

Gasoline prices at the pump improved last week to $2.24 per gallon, up 2 cents from the prior week. Prices were down 24.0% y/y, they were 9.8% above the January low of $2.04. Haver Analytics constructs factors adjusting for the [...]

Import prices declined 0.5% during October (-10.5% y/y) following a 0.6% shortfall in September, revised from -0.1%. A 0.1% slip had been expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. Petroleum prices fell 2.1% (-48.0% y/y) after [...]

France and Italy are the second and third largest economies, respectively, in the EMU. Their recent trends in industrial output make a good summary of what is going on in the EMU as a whole. Neither is particularly strong and yet both [...]

The National Federation of Independent Business reported that its Small Business Optimism Index remained unchanged during October following a slight uptick in September. The latest figure remained below the high of 100.4 in December. [...]