Economy in Brief

The way things are... The ZEW survey shows that the current rated economic situations in June improved everywhere except in the U.S. and the U.K. The absolute readings still show negative readings for Italy and France despite their [...]

The National Federation of Independent Business reported that its Small Business Optimism Index held at 104.5 during May. The index remained up 11.4% from the level of 93.8 in May 2016. An increased 39% of firms reported that they [...]

The headline Final Demand Producer Price Index remained stable during May following a 0.5% April gain. The y/y increase was firm at 2.4%. Expectations also were for no change in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. The PPI excluding [...]

The U.S. Treasury Department reported that during May, the federal government ran an $88.4 billion budget deficit compared to a $52.5 billion deficit in May 2016. An $87.0 billion deficit had been expected in the Action Economics [...]

Over the last 10 years, Japan's PPI has had a nice tracking relationship with Japan's CPI. Of course, the PPI is more volatile than CPI inflation, with PPI inflation rising faster than CPI inflation when inflation is rising and [...]

Inventories at the wholesale level fell 0.5% during April following a 0.1% March uptick, revised from 0.2%. It was the second decline in the last four months, and halved the y/y increase to 1.6%. Durable goods inventories declined [...]

German trade trends show that the massive German trade surplus is being worked down as imports rise faster than exports. That rise seems to have a lot to do with oil and energy imports where prices have been rising rapidly, but then [...]

The Federal Reserve's Financial Accounts data show continued slowing of debt issuance in U.S. financial markets in Q1 2017. The total came to $1,197 billion at a seasonally adjusted annual rate, down from $1,742 billion in Q4. The Q1 [...]