Economy in Brief: July 2012

After two months of decline energy prices turned upward last week. The pump price of regular gasoline rose five cents to $3.41 per gallon last week. Haver Analytics' seasonally-adjusted price for regular rose six cents to $3.15 per [...]

The rate of labor market improvement rose during May. The Bureau of Labor Statistics indicated in its Job Openings & Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) that the rate of 2.7% reversed its April decline and was improved versus the recession [...]

The National Federation of Independent Business reported that its Small Business Optimism Index fell sharply during June to 91.4 from an unrevised 94.4 in May. The latest level was the lowest since October. The percentage of firms [...]

Monthly growth in consumer credit picked up to its fastest this year during May. The Federal Reserve reported yesterday that credit grew $17.1B (AR, 5.3% y/y) after a $10.0B rise in April, revised from $6.5B. A $10.0B increase had [...]

Machinery orders in Japan (Private orders excluding volatile items--ships and electric power) released today fell 14.8% in May. This is the largest month to month decline since October, 2001, raising the prospect of a slowdown in the [...]

German output and orders have shown unexpected life in May. While the problems in EMU continue to swirl around it and Germany seems to be caught in the outermost grip of the spiral we have this month had at least two reports that defy [...]

The job market remained under pressure last month. Nonfarm payrolls grew just 80,000 following gains of 77,000 and 68,000 during the prior two months, revised from 69,000 and 77,000, respectively. A 90,000 increase was expected for [...]

The outplacement firm of Challenger, Grey & Christmas reported that 37,551 job cuts were announced this month, the fewest of the economic recovery. Job cut announcements fell in the aerospace/defense, automotive, computer, consumer [...]