Economic and financial indicators

Jan 29th 2009
From The Economist print edition

• Printable page
• E-mail this

The Federal Reserve maintained its target for overnight interest rates at 0-0.25% on January 28th. The Fed said it was prepared to buy long-dated government bonds if necessary, but did not commit itself to doing so.

The index of American consumer confidence published by the Conference Board, a research firm, edged down in January to 37.7, a new low for the series, which dates back to 1967. House prices fell by 18.2% in the year to November, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller index of house prices in 20 big cities. Low prices offered by distressed sellers are tempting more buyers. Sales of existing homes jumped by 6.5% in December, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Britain’s GDP fell by 1.5% in the fourth quarter, according to a preliminary estimate. It was 1.8% lower than a year earlier.

Confidence among businessmen in Germany is low but stable, according to Ifo, a research institute in Munich. Its business-sentiment index edged up from 82.7 to 83.0 in January. The gauge of Italian business confidence by ISAE, a Rome research group, fell to its lowest level since at least 1991.

Consumer prices in Australia fell by 0.3% in the three months to December, the biggest quarterly decline since 1997. The drop took the annual inflation rate down to 3.7%, from 5% in the third quarter.

Israel’s central bank announced that it was cutting its benchmark interest rate by 0.75 percentage points, to 1%.