Economy in Brief: 2019

The Federal Reserve kept the target range for the Federal funds rate at 1.50% to 1.75% at today's FOMC meeting. The lack of action was expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. Today's action was unanimous amongst FOMC voters. [...]

The U.S. Treasury Department reported that the federal government ran a larger-than-expected $208.8 billion budget deficit during November, compared to a $204.9 bil. twelve months earlier. The Action Economics Survey anticipated a [...]

Japan's PPI (domestic corporate goods price index) is up by 0.1% in November after an out-sized jump of 1.2% in October. Japan, despite the three-month PPI pace of a 4.8% annualized gain, does not show the trappings of momentum to [...]

The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that its Mortgage Loan Index rebounded 3.8% (53.8% y/y) in the week ending December 6 after declining 9.2% in the previous week. Applications to refinance a loan led the increase with an 8.7% [...]

The Consumer Price Index increased 0.3% (2.1% y/y) during November after a 0.4% October rise. A 0.2% gain had been expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. The CPI excluding food & energy rose an expected 0.2% (2.3% y/y), the [...]

Retail gasoline prices held steady last week at $2.58 per gallon (+5.1% y/y)......... These data are reported by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Climate Data Center. The price data can be found in Haver's WEEKLY and [...]

The ZEW global macroeconomic assessments have improved along a broad front in December following a surge of improvement in November. The improvements logged this month are more modest, but they continue the direction of change as [...]

Productivity growth in the nonfarm business sector last quarter was revised to -0.2% at an annual rate (+1.5%) y/y from -0.3%, following a 2.5% Q2 rise. It was the first decline in productivity since Q4'15. Expectations had been for a [...]