Economy in Brief

Consumer confidence improved this month to its firmest level since October 2000. The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index during August jumped 4.3% (10.8% y/y) to 133.4 from 127.9 in July, initially reported as 127.4. The August [...]

The pump price for a gallon of gasoline has been fairly steady near $2.83 per gallon since the end of June. Nevertheless, prices remained up 17.8% y/y. Haver Analytics constructs factors to adjust for the marked seasonal variation in [...]

The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas indicated in its Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey that the General Business Activity Index fell to 30.9 during August after easing to 32.3 in July. Despite these declines, the index remained up [...]

The German IFO index rose to 105.3 in August from 104.6 in July, striking its strongest posture since it logged a value of 105.9 in March. Still, from June 2017 through February 2018, the index had carried readings of 106 or stronger, [...]

The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago reported that its National Activity index fell to 0.13 during July from 0.48 in June. The decline came after two months of great variability. The three-month moving average fell to 0.05, its lowest [...]

In July, Japan's headline inflation was up by a strong 0.3% but balanced by a 0.1% gain in the CPI excluding food and energy (core). The headline gain followed a weak 0.1% June rise while the core gain followed an even weaker 0.1% [...]

New orders for durable goods fell 1.7% (+9.2% y/y) during July following a 0.7% June increase, revised from 1.0%. An unchanged level of orders had been expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. A 5.3% decline (+11.8% y/y) in [...]

The EMU PMIs have been falling over the last six months, but in August the indexes are stabilizing on very minor technical rebounds. The EMU manufacturing PMI fell to 54.6 in August from 55.1 in July as the services PMI posted a [...]