Economy in Brief: September 2014

Retail and food service sales improved 0.6% during August (5.0% y/y) following a revised 0.3% July gain, revised from no change. A 0.5% increase had been expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. Sales increases were broad- [...]

The Federal Government posted a $128.7 billion budget deficit during August of FY 2014, and roughly matched expectations in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. For the first eleven months of the current fiscal year, the government [...]

The Quarterly Service Sector Survey, produced by the U.S. Census Bureau, is designed to give timely, detailed indications of activity in the service sector. These indicators feed into estimates of GDP. The latest figures covering [...]

Initial unemployment insurance claims rose to 315,000 during the week ended September 6 from 304,000 in the prior week, revised from 302,000. It was the highest level of claims since the last week of June. The Action Economics [...]

Inflation in the euro area continues to snake lower. Among the early reporters of inflation data, Spain has the lowest year-over-year inflation at -0.5%, followed by Greece and Italy each at -0.2%. Germany is a high inflation country [...]

Inventories at the wholesale level edged 0.1% higher during July following a 0.2% June increase, revised from 0.3%. Inventories of durable goods increased 0.3% (8.4% y/y). Hardware inventories gained 1.8% (7.6% y/y while motor vehicle [...]

Among the eight reporting countries of the European Monetary Union, five of these early reporters showed increases and three showed declines for industrial production in July. Output is lower by 0.3% in France, by 0.4% in Finland and [...]

The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that their total Mortgage Market Volume Index declined 7.2% last week (-15.0% y/y) after the prior week's 0.2% uptick. Applications were at the lowest level of the economic recovery. [...]