Economy in Brief: October 2014

Labor market conditions tightened this summer. The job openings rate during August improved m/m to 3.4%, the highest level since April 2001. July's rate was revised down to 3.2% from 3.3%. The job openings rate is the number of job [...]

German industrial production fell sharply in August, falling by 4% after rising by 1.6% in July. The sequential growth rates for output show widening declines from 12 months to six months to three months. Output is declining at all [...]

Petroleum prices remain under downward pressure. The cost of a gallon of regular gasoline fell sharply last week to $3.30 (-2.0% y/y), its least expensive since early-February. To account for seasonal patterns, Haver Analytics [...]

Since late-August, the industrial commodity price index, from the Foundation for International Business and Economic Research (FIBER), has shown outsized weakness. The decline amounts to 4.1% (-3.1% y/y) and has been widespread [...]

German new orders, seasonally adjusted and expressed in real terms, fell sharply in August. They are falling over horizons of three months, six months and 12 months. The August decline in orders of 5.7% was led by an 8.4% decline in [...]

The international trade data can be found in Haver's USECON database. Detailed figures are available in the USINT database. The expectations figures are from the Action Economics Forecast Survey, which is carried in the AS1REPNA. [...]

The pace of nonmanufacturing activity backpedaled in September. The Institute for Supply Management's (ISM) composite nonmanufacturing index declined to 58.6 from 59.6 in August and 58.7 in July. This is a diffusion index where a [...]

The U.S. foreign trade deficit in goods and services narrowed marginally in August to $40.1 billion from $40.3 billion in July. That month had edged in from $40.8 billion in June. The Action Economics consensus expectation looked for [...]