Economy in Brief

French and Italian manufacturing industrial production indexes have backed off in February. For Italy, it is two drops in a row; for France, it is four in a row. The PMI gauges have been weakening in Europe and we can see that the [...]

The headline Final Demand Producer Price Index using new methodology increased 0.3% in March following a 0.2% rise in February. Twelve-month growth rose to 3.0%. A 0.2% March rise had been expected in the Action Economics Forecast [...]

Wholesale trade inventories increased 1.0% m/m (5.5% y/y) in February following an upwardly revised 0.9% m/m gain in January. The February rise was down slightly from the 1.1% m/m increase in the advance report released on March 28 [...]

The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) indicated that its Small Business Optimism Index for March fell 2.7% to 104.7 (unchanged from a year ago). The level of optimism hit a 35-year high in February and the March [...]

German exports and imports each fell in February, resulting in the smallest trade surplus since January 2017. However, both 2016 and 2017 produced a low deficit reading in either January or February so the decline has a ring of [...]

The Industrial Materials Price Index from the Foundation for International Business and Economic Research (FIBER) declined 0.9% during the last four weeks. During the last year, however, prices rose 6.1%, and they were up by one-third [...]

Consumer credit outstanding increased $10.61 billion (5.1% y/y) during February following a $15.59 billion January rise, revised from $13.89 billion. It was the weakest monthly increase since September. A $15.0 billion rise had been [...]

The job market cooled off last month. Nonfarm payrolls rose 103,000 (1.6% y/y) during March following a 326,000 February gain and a 176,000 January increase. Together these two figures were revised down by 50,000. A 195,000 increase [...]