Economy in Brief: March 2013

The Mortgage Bankers Association index of total mortgage applications rebounded 14.8% (14.5% y/y) last week to the highest level since the third week of January. Home purchase applications were strong and posted a 15.0% advance (17.3% [...]

Declining profiles for GDP growth rates are all the rage in EMU and elsewhere. Of the fourteen countries listed in the table (both EMU and non-EMU) Yr/Yr growth rates are lower in Q4 than in Q3 for all but three of them; two of those, [...]

Nonfarm private sector payrolls increased 198,000 during February according to the ADP/Moody's National Employment Report. The gain followed a 215,000 January increase, initially reported as 192,000. Figures for all of last year were [...]

The latest report from CoreLogic indicated that home prices gained 0.7% during January after a 0.2% December rise. These gains lifted the y/y increase to 9.7%, the strongest rise since early-2006. When seasonally adjusted by Haver [...]

The table and the chart report some of the same data and reveal the same trends but in different ways. EMU is a bifurcated conundrum. Germany's service sector is surging higher this time all by itself like a biker distancing himself [...]

The EMU PPI for January is up by 1.9% year-over-year. Spain, Belgium and Finland have higher year-over-year rates of change. Over 12-months the weakest inflation is in Greece- of all places. This is, of course evidence that austerity [...]

The latest report from the International Council of Shopping Centers and Goldman Sachs indicated that chain store sales ticked up 0.2% last week (1.8% y/y) to the highest level since early-January. That places sales 1.0% above the [...]

The Composite Index for the service and construction sectors from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) improved to 56.0 last month from 55.2 during January. Expectations had been for 55.0. Since the series' inception in 1997 [...]