Economy in Brief

The Composite Index of Manufacturing Sector Activity from the Institute for Supply Management improved to 55.4 during May from 54.9 in April. Due to technical difficulties at the ISM, this seasonally adjusted figure differs from the [...]

The Composite Index of Manufacturing Sector Activity from the Institute for Supply Management fell back to 53.2 during May from an unrevised 54.9 in April. The reading retraced two months of improvement and was below the November peak [...]

The EMU PMI turned lower in May, falling to 52.2 from April's 53.4. The May reading is the lowest since November, when index stood at 51.6. There's been a definite cooling in the European Monetary Union. For the first time in a while, [...]

Consumer spending pulled back in April by 0.1% after surging 1.0% in March, revised from the 0.9% initially reported; April's amount is up 4.3% y/y. A 0.2% rise was expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. Outlays on durable [...]

German retail sales were revised higher in March but still show weakness in April as sales dropped by 1% month-to-month. The profile of German growth rates shows year-over-year growth in sales at 1.2% with 3-month growth at a 1.1% [...]

Real GDP was revised to a 1.0% rate of decline in Q1 (2.0% y/y) from the minuscule 0.1% increase reported initially. It was also modestly worse than consensus forecasts of a 0.5% decrease. The chain-type price index remained at the [...]

Weekly initial claims for unemployment insurance dropped to 300,000 in the week ended May 24 from 327,000 the week before, basically reversing that week's increase and extending their recent seesaw pattern; the May 17 number was [...]

Japan imposed a new VAT tax at the start of the second quarter. Consumer behavior designed for tax avoidance has had a huge impact on retail sales in the month immediately before the imposition of the tax and in the month of the [...]