Economy in Brief: October 2015

The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that its total Mortgage Market Volume Index jumped 25.5% last week (52.4% y/y). It was the highest level of applications since late-January. Home purchase applications surged 27.4% (48.9% y/y) [...]

Gasoline prices at the pump remained unchanged last week at $2.32 per gallon (-29.7% y/y) but remained below $2.84 in mid-June. Haver Analytics constructs factors adjusting for the seasonal variation in pump prices. The seasonally [...]

Year-over-year German orders are still advancing but they fell in month-to-month in August for the second month in a row. German orders fell by 1.8% in August after shedding 2.2% in July. Both domestic and foreign orders fell in [...]

These foreign trade figures add to the preliminary numbers released one week ago by including trade in services and data by country. The U.S. foreign trade deficit in goods and services during August increased to $48.3 billion from [...]

The Markit (and for the US, ISM) MFG PMI's largely weakened globally in September. There were readings below 50 in nine of the seventeen countries/units in the table. There were month to month declines in the MFG-PMI indices in 11 of [...]

The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) Composite Index of Nonmanufacturing Sector Business fell to 56.9 during September from an unrevised 59.0 August. Despite the decline, the average during the third quarter of 58.7 was its [...]

The ECB's targeted HICP already has dipped below zero in its year-over-year change. In August the PPI shows another sharp drop in headline PPI prices. Are the forces of deflation gathering steam? The August PPI in the EMU fell by 0.9% [...]

Job growth remained weak for a second month during September. Nonfarm payrolls grew 142,000 following downwardly revised increases of 136,000 and 223,000 during the prior two months. The gains compared to a 260,000 average last year [...]