Economy in Brief

The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City reported that its index of regional manufacturing sector business activity surged to a record 26 in April following stability during the prior two months at 17. The index was up from its low of [...]

Judging from consumer confidence, the largest European economies would seem to be in fine shape. German confidence for May is mooted at a 97.8% queue percentile standing, better only 2% of the time. Italy has exactly the same queue [...]

New orders for durable goods increased 2.6% (9.5% y/y) during March following a 3.5% February rise, revised from 3.1%. Expectations had been for a 1.5% rise in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. Stronger orders for transportation [...]

Initial claims for unemployment insurance fell sharply to 209,000 (-17.1% y/y) from a revised 233,000 in the prior week, initially reported as 232,000. Expectations had been for 231,000 initial claims in the Action Economics Forecast [...]

Japan’s sector indexes showed a solid gain in February, but it’s less than expected and it brings the business activity index to a level that is barely above its level of last October. The METI indexes are at relatively high marks as [...]

The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that its total Mortgage Applications Volume Index eased 0.2% last week (-1.9% y/y), following a 4.9% increase during the prior week. Purchase loan applications were unchanged (+11.2% y/y), [...]

The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index fell 1.8% during March (+2.2% y/y) to 127.7 following a 4.6% increase during February to 130.0......... The Consumer Confidence data is available in Haver's CBDB database. The total [...]

Italy can be a difficult country to understand. Its GDP has lagged badly since the great global recession. From Q1 2008 to date, Italian GDP actually has failed to grow and has declined by 5.8%. That’s a period of 10 years without net [...]