Economy in Brief

New orders for durable goods increased 2.6% (9.5% y/y) during March following a 3.5% February rise, revised from 3.1%. Expectations had been for a 1.5% rise in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. Stronger orders for transportation [...]

Initial claims for unemployment insurance fell sharply to 209,000 (-17.1% y/y) from a revised 233,000 in the prior week, initially reported as 232,000. Expectations had been for 231,000 initial claims in the Action Economics Forecast [...]

Japan’s sector indexes showed a solid gain in February, but it’s less than expected and it brings the business activity index to a level that is barely above its level of last October. The METI indexes are at relatively high marks as [...]

The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that its total Mortgage Applications Volume Index eased 0.2% last week (-1.9% y/y), following a 4.9% increase during the prior week. Purchase loan applications were unchanged (+11.2% y/y), [...]

The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index fell 1.8% during March (+2.2% y/y) to 127.7 following a 4.6% increase during February to 130.0......... The Consumer Confidence data is available in Haver's CBDB database. The total [...]

Italy can be a difficult country to understand. Its GDP has lagged badly since the great global recession. From Q1 2008 to date, Italian GDP actually has failed to grow and has declined by 5.8%. That’s a period of 10 years without net [...]

Sales of new single-family homes during March increased 4.0% (8.8% y/y) to 694,000 (SAAR) following a 3.6% February gain to 667,000, revised from 618,000. Expectations had been for 620,000 sales in the Action Economics Forecast [...]

The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index rose to 128.7 in April from 127.0 (initially reported as 127.7) in March and was 7.8% higher than a year ago. The Action Economics Forecast Survey had looked for a slight decline in the [...]