Economy in Brief: June 2016

Total retail sales & spending at restaurants increased 0.5% (2.5% y/y) during May following an unrevised 1.3% April jump. The rise compared to expectations for 0.3% growth in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. The increase in motor [...]

Improvement in factory sector output continues to support pricing power in the industrial sector. The Industrial Materials Price Index from the Foundation for International Business and Economic Research (FIBER) increased 0.7% during [...]

Japan's seasonally adjusted retail sales were flat in April after a 1.5% gain in March. However, sequential sales show spending by consumers has been declining on balance over three-month, six-month and 12-month. Over 12 months, not [...]

The U.S. Treasury Department reported a $52.5 billion budget deficit during May of 2016, smaller than the $84.1 billion deficit twelve months earlier. So far in FY'16, however, the budget deficit totaled $407.1 billion, up 11.0% [...]

The National Association of Realtors reported that the Composite Index of Home Affordability declined 4.5% during April to 162.4, the lowest level since August. The index was 24.3% lower than its peak in January 2014. During the last [...]

Industrial production rose in April in each and every one of the early reporting EMU members in the table. Month-to-month IP increases range from a low 0.9% rise in Italy to an outsized 6.7% gain in Ireland. These are very sizeable [...]

Inventories at the wholesale level increased 0.6% during April following a 0.2% March gain, revised from 0.1%. It was the largest increase since last June. Nondurable goods sector inventories rose 1.3% (5.5% y/y) as farm-product [...]

Total borrowing in the U.S. decreased in Q1 to $2,493 billion at a seasonally adjusted annual rate, down from $3,950 billion in Q4 2015, according to the Financial Accounts of the U.S., released today by the Federal Reserve Board. The [...]