Economy in Brief: April 2018

The Bank of France business survey stepped down to a reading of 102.7 in March from 104.6 in February. The reading is the weakest since the survey barometer logged 101.9 in January 2017, a bit more than one year ago. Since then the [...]

The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that its total Mortgage Applications Volume Index declined 1.9% last week (-5.5% y/y), following a 3.3% fall during the prior week. Purchase loan applications were off 2.0% (+0.2% y/y), about [...]

Consumer prices eased 0.1% (+2.4% y/y) during March following a 0.2% February increase. It was the first decline in the CPI since May 2017. No change was expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. The CPI excluding food & [...]

The National Federation of Independent Business indicated that its Small Business Optimism Index for February increased 0.7% to 107.6.............. Roughly 24 million small businesses exist in the U.S. and they create 80% of all new [...]

Retail gasoline prices slipped to $2.69 per gallon last week (+11.1% y/y) following the prior week's five cent jump. Haver Analytics constructs factors adjusting for the seasonal variation in gasoline pump prices. The seasonally- [...]

French and Italian manufacturing industrial production indexes have backed off in February. For Italy, it is two drops in a row; for France, it is four in a row. The PMI gauges have been weakening in Europe and we can see that the [...]

The headline Final Demand Producer Price Index using new methodology increased 0.3% in March following a 0.2% rise in February. Twelve-month growth rose to 3.0%. A 0.2% March rise had been expected in the Action Economics Forecast [...]

Wholesale trade inventories increased 1.0% m/m (5.5% y/y) in February following an upwardly revised 0.9% m/m gain in January. The February rise was down slightly from the 1.1% m/m increase in the advance report released on March 28 [...]