Economy in Brief: March 2019

Slow growth in industrial sector activity is ongoing. That's the message from the latest survey of factory sector activity in New York state. The Empire State Manufacturing Index of General Business Conditions fell to 3.7 this month [...]

Initial claims for unemployment insurance edged down to 223,000 in the week ended March 2 ........ Continuing claims for unemployment insurance receded to 1.755 million in the week ended February 23....... Data on weekly unemployment [...]

New home sales fell 6.9% to 607,000 during January following a December increase to 652,000, revised from 621,000. It was the lowest level of sales in three months. January sales of 623,000 had been expected in the Action Economics [...]

Initial claims for unemployment insurance rose 6,000 in the week ended March 9 to 229,000 from 223,000 the week before, which was unrevised. The Action Economics Forecast Survey projected 225,000 claims for this week. The four-week [...]

The Labor Department reported that import prices rose 0.6% during February (-1.3 y/y) after improving 0.1% in January, revised from a 0.5% decline. A 0.3% rise had been expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. These figures [...]

New orders for durable goods increased 1.2% (3.5% year-on-year) during December ....... The durable goods figures are available in Haver's USECON database. The Action Economics consensus forecast figure is in the AS1REPNA database. [...]

The survey covers over 75% of all U.S. retail residential mortgage applications and has been conducted weekly since 1990. Respondents include mortgage bankers, commercial banks and thrifts. The base period and value for all indexes is [...]

The EMU rebound in IP is touted as stronger than expected with a 1.4% rise in January, compared to an expected 1% increase. Fair enough. But as surprises go, this one does not take you anywhere since the trend lower is still well [...]