Economy in Brief: 2015

WTI crude oil costs declined to $40.40 (-39.9% y/y) last week, and yesterday dropped to a seven-year low of $37.65 per barrel. Brent crude oil prices fell w/w to $42.41 per barrel last week and were $40.65 yesterday. WTI prices [...]

The job openings rate retreated to 3.6% during October from 3.7% in September. The latest figure compared to 3.2% one year earlier but was down from the expansion high of 3.8% reached during July. The private sector job openings rate [...]

The OECD LEIs show values below the true stable `100' level for the OECD as a whole, for the U.S., for the U.K., for Japan and for China. Only the EMU region has an index above 100, at 100.6 in October. However, the EMU's normal [...]

The National Federation of Independent Business reported that its Small Business Optimism Index declined 1.3 points during November to seasonally adjusted 94.8, the lowest level since June. The latest figure remained below the high of [...]

Consumer credit outstanding increased $16.0 billion during October after a $28.6 billion September rise, revised from $28.9 billion. Expectations were for a $20.0 billion gain in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. During the last [...]

Germany's industrial production rose by 0.2% in October after falling for two consecutive months. Manufacturing IP which also fell for two consecutive months is advancing by a stronger 0.6% in October. The manufacturing IP gain is [...]

The National Association for Business Economics forecasts 2.6% growth in U.S. real economic activity in 2016, which was little-revised from 2.7% expected in October. Expected growth of 2.4% this year also was changed from 2.5%. The [...]

The U.S. foreign trade deficit in goods and services widened modestly in October to $43.9 billion from $42.5 billion in September. The latter was revised from $40.8 billion. The Action Economics Forecast Survey pointed to a deficit of [...]