Economy in Brief

The job market continued to lose its vibrancy during April. Nonfarm payrolls rose 164,000 (1.6% y/y) following a 135,000 March gain and a 324,0000 February increase. Together, these two figures were revised up by 30,000. A 190,000 [...]

The pace of business activity in the service sector continues to moderate. The Composite Index of Nonmanufacturing Sector Activity from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) fell to 56.8 during April from an unrevised 58.8 in [...]

Output per hour in the nonfarm business sector rose 0.7% at a seasonally adjusted annual rate in Q1'18 following a 0.3% rise in Q4'17; the latter was revised from zero change reported in March. The consensus in the Action Economics [...]

The chart tells the tortured story of recent EMU inflation trends. Inflation remained low in the wake of the financial crisis and then the EMU area transitioned into a period with sporadic deflation. After mid 2016 it broke away from [...]

Manufacturers' orders gained 1.6% (+8.1% year-on-year) during March, the second consecutive monthly increase of this magnitude. Manufacturing shipments rose 0.4% (6.8% y/y) to a record high $503 billion. Shipments have grown for 12 [...]

The U.S. trade deficit in goods and services declined to $48.96 billion during March from $57.74 billion in February, revised from $57.6 billion. It was the narrowest deficit in six months. A $52.3 billion deficit had been expected in [...]

Initial claims for unemployment insurance edged higher to 211,000 (-12.8% y/y) in the week ending April 28, from an unrevised 209,000 in the prior week. Claims had fallen sharply in the week ending April 21 and the Action Economics [...]

At today's meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, the federal funds rate target was held constant in a range between 1.50% and 1.75%. The financial markets had expected today's action as indicated in the Action Economics [...]