Economy in Brief: August 2016

Italian industrial output fell hard for the second month in a row. However, output made a strong 0.8% gain in April. Even so, output is falling at a 5% annual rate in Q2 with declines across all sectors. Italian manufacturing is [...]

The job market remained on firm footing during July. Nonfarm payroll employment grew 255,000 (1.7% y/y) following upwardly revised gains of 292,000 and 24,000 during the prior two months. A 180,000 increase had been expected in the [...]

The U.S. trading day is still unfolding and Europe already has put in a full enough allotment of news and events to fill a week. The BOE shows its colors The long awaited BOE meeting is now out of the way and the BOE has queued up [...]

New orders to manufacturers declined 1.5% (-5.6 y/y) during June following a little-revised 1.2% May fall. A 1.7% decline had been expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. Durable goods orders fell 3.9%, the same as in the [...]

The outplacement firm of Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported that job cut announcements during July rose to 45,346 (-57.1% y/y) following June's increase to 38,536. Layoffs increased in the aerospace/defense, commodities, computer, [...]

Initial unemployment insurance claims increased to 269,000 (-1.8% y/y) during the week ended July 30 from an unrevised 266,000 in the prior week. Claims remained near the lowest level since 1973. The four-week moving average rose to [...]

The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that its total Mortgage Market Volume Index fell 3.5% (+32.6% y/y) last week following an 11.2% decline. Purchase applications were off 2.4% (+6.0% y/y), down sharply for the third straight [...]

Retail sales volumes show a slight acceleration in play for total euro area sales volumes from 12-months through three-months. The accelerating trend holds for nonfood products as well. The acceleration trend is being bucked by motor [...]