Economy in Brief: November 2013

The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that their total mortgage market index pulled back 7.0% last week (-41.5% y/y) and reversed the prior week's increase. Applications to refinance an existing loan retreated 7.9% and remained [...]

The index of Leading Economic Indicators, published by the Conference Board, again rose 0.7% during September (4.2% y/y). That remained the strongest since April. A 0.6% rise had been expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. [...]

Germany's orders advanced by 3.3% in September after dropping by 0.3% in August. Foreign orders were super-charged, boosting the headline by rising by 6.8% in the month after two months of significant month-to-month losses. Domestic [...]

The outplacement firm of Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported that 45,730 job cuts (-4.2% y/y) were announced during October. The moderate increase from 40,289 in September reflected more layoffs in the pharmaceutical, media, [...]

According to the CoreLogic House Price Index, home prices including distressed sales inched up just 0.2% during September after a 0.7% August rise. The increase was the slowest since January. The y/y gain, however, improved to 12.0%, [...]

The Composite Index for the service and construction sectors from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) recovered moderately to 55.4 during October after a sharp decline to 54.4 in September. The gain beat consensus expectations [...]

The International Council of Shopping Centers and Goldman Sachs reported that chain store sales slipped 0.6% last week (+1.9% y/y). They began this month 0.4% below the October average after falling 0.8% during all of that month. [...]

The EMU PPI has fallen year-over-year for two months in a row. The year-over-year change in the HICP, the EMU-wide gauge for the CPI, is decelerating for three consecutive months. The core-HICP has been in a general deceleration since [...]