Economy in Brief

Japan's sector indices from METI show gains across the board led by a huge rise in Construction. The construction index jumped by 8.1 points in April the largest month-to-month gain in the history of the series that goes back to early [...]

Sales of existing single-family homes increased 1.1% during May to 5.620 million (AR, 2.7% y/y) from 5.560 million in April, revised from 5.770 million. Expectations had been for 5.540 million purchases in the Action Economics [...]

The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that its total Mortgage Applications Volume Index gained 0.6% (-14.7% y/y) in the week ended June 16, after a 2.8% increase during the prior week. Purchase applications eased 1.0% (+8.7% y/y) [...]

Regular gasoline prices fell to $2.32 per gallon last week (-1.5% y/y), the lowest level since late-March. Haver Analytics constructs factors adjusting for the seasonal variation in gasoline pump prices. Since prices normally rise [...]

The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia's Nonmanufacturing Business Index of current conditions in June rose to 28.0 from 25.8 during May. The index remained down, however, versus the February high of 38.0. Forty-one percent of [...]

Virtually all major swings on this time line in the German PPI are caused by swings in oil prices. But now Brent is falling. In the most topical daily data venue Brent has hit a 7-month low in price. An oil glut is eviscerating OPEC. [...]

The U.S. current account deficit of $116.8 billion during Q1'17 was larger than a revised $114.0 billion in Q4'16. The Q1 deficit figure compared to $123.6 billion expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. The latest quarterly [...]

Japan's trade surplus continues to putter along in a show draft instead of rising as had been expected in May. Japan's exports were flat while imports advanced by 0.3%. Exports show a steady trend of deceleration with growth of 12.2% [...]