Economy in Brief: September 2018

Germany's orders fell by 0.9% in July when they were expected to rise by twice that much. Sequentially, German order growth rates are getting progressively weaker over shorter periods of time; that sort of deceleration is never a good [...]

The ADP/Moody's National Employment Report indicated that private nonfarm payrolls increased 163,000 during August (1.8% y/y) following a 217,000 July gain, revised from 219,000. The increase disappointed expectations for a 190,000 [...]

Output per hour in the nonfarm business sector grew at an unrevised 2.9% seasonally adjusted annual rate in Q2'18 (1.3% year-on-year), following a 0.3% gain in Q1. In Q4'17 productivity declined at a 0.3% pace. The consensus in the [...]

Retail sales in the European Monetary Union (EMU) countries dropped by 0.2% in July, lowering their three-month growth rate to a 1.5% annual pace. Retail sales in the EMU are rising at just a 2.1% pace over six months and by 1.2% over [...]

Total sales of light vehicles of 16.72 million units (SAAR) in August (0.8% y/y) compared to 16.77 million in July according to the Autodata Corporation. The m/m slip left sales 8.0% below the 18.16 million unit high reached last [...]

The U.S. trade deficit in goods and services widened to $50.08 billion during July from June's $45.74 billion which was little revised from last month's report. It was the deepest deficit since February. A deficit of $49.9 billion had [...]

Gasoline prices eased to $2.82 per gallon (+5.4% y/y) last week and remained down from the late-May high of $2.96. Haver Analytics constructs factors to adjust for the marked seasonal variation in prices. The seasonally-adjusted [...]

The Markit Global manufacturing PMI data for August are in. And there is a broad manufacturing slowing in place to which the U.S. is a notable exception. Of the 17 reporting units in the table, nine show month-to-month declines. The [...]