Economy in Brief: 2012

Orders in the factory sector are still rising, but the slower trend rate of growth mirrors other indications of slowing activity in manufacturing. Factory sector orders in October rose 0.8% following a 4.5% September gain. The [...]

Nonfarm business sector productivity for Q3'12 was revised up to 2.9% (1.7% y/y) from last month's estimate of a 1.9% gain which matched the Q2 rise. Growth was its fastest in two years. The latest increase reflected a 4.2% (3.5% y/y) [...]

Among the original EMU members reporting service sector PMI details, Ireland and Italy were the only reporters with slippage posted in November. The overall EMU reading advanced to 46.74 from 46.04 a metric still pointing to declines [...]

The Composite Index for the service and construction sectors from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) improved to 54.7 last month from an unrevised 54.2 during October. The figure compared to Consensus expectations for a decline [...]

The Automatic Data Processing (ADP) payroll survey indicated that private sector payrolls rose 118,000 last month after a little-revised 157,000 gain, although September's gain was revised lower. The latest increase was short of the [...]

Last week the pump price for a gallon of regular gasoline declined five cents (+3.2%) to $3.39 per gallon. Since their September peak, prices have fallen forty nine cents per gallon. The norm for this time of year of less driving is [...]

South Africa's Bureau of Economic Research released its quarterly report on consumer confidence for the fourth quarter of 2012 today. The data are expressed in balances of opinion and can be found in the Haver data base EMERGEMA. The [...]

A promising start to this holiday season came to naught with the new chain store sales report from the International Council of Shopping Centers and Goldman Sachs. Sales fell 3.1% last week and reversed Thanksgiving week's 3.3% rise. [...]