Economy in Brief: August 2014

New orders to all manufacturers jumped 1.1% (1.5% y/y) in June following a 0.6% decline during May, revised from -0.5%. A 0.6% increase was expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. A 1.7% rebound (-0.6% y/y) in durable goods [...]

In July the composite PMI for the European Monetary Union rose to 53.8 from June's 52.8. This represents a slight backtracking from the preliminary value. Moving averages over 12 months, six months and three months show progress from [...]

The price for a gallon of regular gasoline declined another five cents last week to $3.54 (-2.9% y/y). Prices remained down from the $3.78 per gallon peak reached in February of last year. To account for seasonal volatility, Haver [...]

Activity in the service & construction sectors increased last month at its quickest rate since August 2005. The Composite Index for the service & building sectors from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) rose to 58.7 in July [...]

Lower oil prices recently have countered increases in most other industrial commodity prices and left the overall trend muted. The industrial commodity price index, from the Foundation for International Business and Economic Research [...]

The EMU producer price index rose by 0.2% in June as its year-over-year drop was cut to just -0.1%. The trend for the PPI is not absolutely clear from the sequential growth rates since there is a speedup drop from 12 months to six [...]

According to the Autodata Corporation, sales of light vehicles declined 2.5% during July to 16.48 million units (SAAR). Sales still were 4.6% higher y/y. Moreover, sales were 2.7% higher versus December and up 82.2% since the [...]

Personal income increased 0.4% during June (3.9% y/y) after a 0.4% rise in May. Consensus expectations had anticipated a 0.4% gain. Wages & salaries were also up 0.4% in both May and June (4.9% y/y). Proprietors' income was also up [...]