Economy in Brief: April 2012

The Euro-Area is in a very tight spot. The ECB has a real policy quandary. It seems that more economists are coming to the inevitable conclusion that the Zone countries go together like oil and water. Only if you continue to 'agitate' [...]

The index of industrial production in Brazil rose 1.3% in February after having declined 1.5% in January. Although the index was still 3.3% below a year ago, the rise was greater than expected and a welcome reversal of trend that may [...]

Orders in the manufacturing sector recovered 1.3% (9.0% y/y) during February and reversed a little-revised 1.1% January slump. The rise reflected a 2.4% gain in orders for durable goods. That was little-changed from the advance report [...]

The rise has been relentless. Pump prices for regular gasoline rose another two cents last week to $3.94 per gallon, their highest since last May. The gain has been seventy cents (22%) since year-end. Reduced seasonal demand typically [...]

The Q1 Tankan results for large Japanese enterprises show a steady manufacturing sector and a slightly improved non-manufacturing sector. Medium-sized firms also show no MFG sector improvement with an even larger non MFG sector [...]

In mid February of this year, the Bank of Japan announced a price stability goal of 1.0% in place of its price expectation of 0.5% and raised its Asset Purchase Program by 10 trillion yen to 65 trillion yen in mid February. The policy [...]

Warm temperatures didn't seem to give much of a lift to construction spending. During February, outlays fell 1.1% (+5.8% y/y) following a downwardly revised 0.8% January drop. The decline disappointed Consensus expectations for a 0.7% [...]

Factory sector growth remained just moderate last month. The Composite Index of industrial sector activity from the Institute For Supply Management inched up to an expected 53.4 last month from an unrevised 52.4 in February. The [...]