Economy in Brief

At today's meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, the targeted federal funds rate was held steady in a range of 1.00% to 1.25%. This followed two increases earlier this year. Additionally, the Fed indicated that shrinking its [...]

The French industrial climate gauge has barely moved over the last four months. The gauge sits at a relatively elevated level at the 84th percentile of its ranked queue of data since 2001 (or 89th percentile since 1990). The [...]

Sales of new single-family homes improved 0.8% to 610,000 during June following a 4.9% May increase to 605,000, revised from 610,000. Despite the rise, sales were 4.4% below the March peak. Expectations had been for 615,000 sales in [...]

The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that its total Mortgage Applications Volume Index rose 0.4% (-23.3% y/y) in the week ended July 21 following a 6.3% increase in the prior week. Applications to refinance increased 3.4% (-41.4% [...]

Regular gasoline prices rose to $2.31 per gallon last week (6.0% y/y) from $2.28 in the prior week. They remained down, however, versus the high of $2.45 per gallon in late-April. Haver Analytics constructs factors adjusting for the [...]

The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index jumped 3.2% (25.2% y/y) during July to 121.1 following a 0.3% June dip, revised from +1.1%. Despite the increase, the index remained 3.0% below its March peak, which was its highest level [...]

Positioned in its various arrays of data since 1991, the German IFO index and its principle components show the all-sector reading at its historic high (since 1991), manufacturing at its historic high and construction at its historic [...]

The Federal Housing Finance Agency's (FHFA) index of U.S. house prices rose 7.5% (AR) during the last three months, compared to a 6.2% gain during all of last year. In May, prices rose 0.4% (6.9% y/y) following a 0.6% April gain, [...]