Economy in Brief: December 2017

Retail gasoline prices fell last week to $2.50 per gallon (+13.2% y/y) following a fall to $2.53 in the prior week. These prices were below the peak of $2.59 in the second week of November. Haver Analytics constructs factors adjusting [...]

The Composite Index of Nonmanufacturing Sector Activity from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) declined to 57.4 during October from an unrevised 60.1 in September. It was lowest level in three months. The Action Economics [...]

The U.S. trade deficit in goods and services increased to $48.7 billion in October from $44.9 billion in September, revised from $43.5 billion. A $46.6 billion deficit had been expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. Total [...]

The pullback in retail sales and in auto sales is a bit hard to understand against the background thoroughly painted about a strong ongoing industrial revival. In the first table below, we show retail sales and auto trends with some [...]

Manufacturing sector orders eased 0.1% in October following a 1.7% September rise, initially reported as 1.4%. Durable goods orders declined 0.8% (+3.2% y/y), revised from the advance estimate of a 1.2% drop. Transportation sector [...]

The euro area PPI slowed to a gain of 0.3% in October after a 0.5% advance in September. But its three-month rise, at 5.4%, is still faster than its six-month pace (0.3%) and shows acceleration compared to its year-on-year pace of [...]

While the sample of countries in the table below is far from complete, it is a highly important sample of the industrialized trade-oriented countries. A simple diffusion calculation across the countries in the table shows that most [...]

Total sales of light vehicles declined 3.4% during November (-1.3% y/y) to 17.48 million units (SAAR) from 18.09 million in October, according to the Autodata Corporation. Sales have fallen 5.9% from the September high. Light truck [...]