Economy in Brief

The U.S. trade deficit in goods and services widened to $50.08 billion during July from June's $45.74 billion which was little revised from last month's report. It was the deepest deficit since February. A deficit of $49.9 billion had [...]

Gasoline prices eased to $2.82 per gallon (+5.4% y/y) last week and remained down from the late-May high of $2.96. Haver Analytics constructs factors to adjust for the marked seasonal variation in prices. The seasonally-adjusted [...]

The Markit Global manufacturing PMI data for August are in. And there is a broad manufacturing slowing in place to which the U.S. is a notable exception. Of the 17 reporting units in the table, nine show month-to-month declines. The [...]

Forward momentum in building activity continues to slow. The value of construction put-in-place improved 0.1% (5.8% y/y) during July following a 0.8% decline in June, revised from -1.1%. A 0.4% increase was expected in the Action [...]

The ISM composite index of activity in the factory sector increased to 61.3 during August from 58.1 in July, which was unrevised. The latest level was the highest since May 2004 as each of the index components improved. A reading of [...]

The Chicago Purchasing Managers Business Barometer fell to 63.6 during August from an unrevised 65.5 in July. The decline was to the lowest level in three months. The Action Economics Forecast Survey expected a decline to 63.0. The [...]

Industrial production fell in Japan for the third consecutive month. While the July drop was small, the three-month growth rate shows a sizeable decline in the works. IP in the developing third quarter is falling on a quarter-to-date [...]

The plot in the chart makes it clear that the slippage in the EU indexes for EMU members is an ongoing phenomenon, not a one-month or two-month bit of variation. This sort of slippage is confirmed as well by the Markit indexes that [...]