Economy in Brief: June 2020

Many economists are now looking to non-traditional real-time data sources to get a bearing on the economic temperature. That's partly because of the normal lags that exist between the period to which traditional data sources pertain [...]

The Federal Reserve left the target for the Fed funds rate in a range of 0.00% to 0.25% at today's meeting of the FOMC. In the Fed's press release, it stated, "The coronavirus outbreak is causing tremendous human and economic hardship [...]

• May budget deficit of $399 billion; fiscal-year-to-date (FY) deficit of $1.88 trillion. • Last month FY surpassed dollar deficit record, this month share of GDP at 75-year high. • FY outlays up 29.4% versus a year ago; revenues down [...]

Japan's various economic surveys tell a consistent, depressing… and familiar story on the economy. The final two columns of the table rank the various readings on growth and on index level. The readings are uniformly and extremely [...]

• Pricing power is weighed down by economic weakness due to coronavirus shutdowns. • Food prices continue to strengthen. • Energy prices weaken further. The record decline in overall activity this quarter is weighing on pricing power. [...]

• Mortgage applications increased 9.3% in week ending June 5. • 15-year fixed rate mortgage declines to seven-year low of 2.89%. The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that its total Mortgage Applications Index rose 9.3% (48.1% [...]

• NFIB Small Business Optimism Index rebounded to 94.4 in May from a seven-year low in April. • Eight out of ten components rose in May. • Respondents are optimistic about future business conditions and expect the recession to be [...]

• Wholesale inventory-to-sales ratio jumps to record 1.65 in April. • Inventories increased 0.3% while sales dropped 16.9%. • While inventory swings can have a meaningful impact on GDP, in the current quarter they will be overwhelmed [...]