Economy in Brief: January 2021

• Production gains lift prices. • Commodity price strength remains broad-based. Strength in industrial output is continuing. Industrial production rose during each of the seven months ended November, up 20.5% during that period. At [...]

• Nonrevolving usage picks up. • Credit card balances continue to fall. Consumer credit outstanding increased $15.3 billion during November (0.3% y/y) following a $4.5 billion October rise, revised from $7.2 billion. A $9.0 billion [...]

• Coronavirus restrictions, business shutdowns & severe weather cause decline. • Earnings growth accelerates. • Jobless rate holds steady at lowest level since March. The recovery in the labor market came to an abrupt end in December. [...]

German manufacturing has all the trappings of being on the mend. Output rose by a solid 0.9% in November and is still riding a string of increases. Although output is up at a 29.5% annual rate over three months and at a 40.9% pace [...]

• Inventories unchanged while sales rose 0.2% in November. • Wholesale inventory-to-sales ratio unchanged at 1.31. Wholesale inventories were unchanged in November (-2.1% y/y) after solid gains of 1.3% m/m in October and 0.9% m/m in [...]

• Coronavirus restrictions, business shutdowns & severe weather cause decline. • Earnings growth accelerates. • Jobless rate holds steady at lowest level since March. The recovery in the labor market came to an abrupt end in December. [...]

The comprehensive EU indexes for December echo some of the recent findings of the Markit indexes for manufacturing and services. We see in the EU framework that the overall index rises month-to-month to 90.4 in December from 87.7 in [...]

• Service sector activity continues to trend sideways. • Component activity remains mixed. • Pricing power eases. The Composite Index of Services Activity from the Institute for Supply Management rose to 57.2 during December after [...]