Economy in Brief: October 2014

The best way to evaluate the relative strength or weakness of a currency is to assess it using purchasing power parity (PPP). According to this method, we take the euro area and its measure of its price level and compare it to another [...]

Import prices fell 0.5% (-0.9% y/y) during September, after a 0.6% August drop, earlier reported as -0.9%. The decline matched expectations in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. A 2.0% fall (-6.6% y/y) in petroleum prices led the [...]

Inventories in the wholesale sector increased 0.7% (7.9% y/y) during August, the strongest rise since April. Quicker inventory building stretched across industry sectors. Durable goods inventories grew 0.8% (8.5% y/y) paced by a 4.5% [...]

Initial claims for unemployment insurance were roughly stable during the week ended October 4 at 287,000 (-20.7% y/y). The Action Economics Forecast Survey expected a rebound to 295,000 claims in the latest week. The four-week moving [...]

In the game of baseball, there're three strikes and you're out. Fortunately, Germany plays football (soccer), not baseball. Germany has posted weak reports on industrial orders, industrial output and now for exports. This is a triple [...]

The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that their total Mortgage Market Volume Index increased 3.8% last week (-23.1% y/y) following two week's of decline. Applications remained near the lowest level of the economic recovery. [...]

The OECD leading economic indicator for the entire OECD area in August is unchanged from July and June at a reading of 100.4. This string of readings ticked higher from May when the level was 100.5. The U.S. has an unchanged reading [...]

Consumer credit outstanding increased $13.5 billion during August following a $21.6 billion July gain, initially reported as $26.0 billion. Expectations were for a $20.5 billion increase, according to the Action Economics Forecast [...]