Economy in Brief: 2011

In the first week of April, sales at chain stores jumped 2.3% w/w. Sales did the same last month, then held on for a 3.0% increase versus February. During the last ten years there has been a 66% correlation between the y/y change in [...]

The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that overall mortgage applications fell 2.0% last week to the lowest level since late-February. Applications to refinance fell 6.2% w/w and were off roughly one-half from the peak last August. [...]

The American Bankers Association reported that the number of loans past due as a percentage of the number of loans outstanding fell sharply by the end of last year. In addition, based on loan values the figure also was down sharply [...]

EMU lead by Germany- The EMU service sector is still on the rise but the rise is not on a particularly strong trajectory of expansion. After a set-back in February, Germany's services index is up strongly but still not back to its [...]

What will the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee do about the official bank rate when it meets on April 11? The rate has been held at 0.5% since March 5, 2009 and inflation concerns are rising. The incoming data continue to [...]

The U.S. nonmanufacturing sector activity back-pedaled last month. The March Composite Index for the service and construction sectors from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) fell to 57.3 from 59.7 in February. The latest was [...]

The firming U.S. economy and political unrest in Libya gave further strength last week to petroleum prices.The pump price for regular gasoline jumped eight cents to $3.68 per gallon, the highest level since September, 2008 and more- [...]

In the US we complain that unemployment is so high. But in the US recession the rate of unemployment jumped sharply while Europe's rate only drifted higher by comparison. For a while US and European unemployment rates were roughly [...]