Expenditures by foreign direct investors to acquire, establish, or expand U.S. businesses totaled $296.4 billion (preliminary) in 2018. Expenditures were up 8.7 percent from $272.8 billion (revised) in 2017

Based on a study of 40 US shale oil companies, looking at cash flow from operating activities, only four companies reported a positive cash flow balance in the first quarter of 2019.

In addition, a number of medium-term risks are growing. The financial system appears healthy but vulnerabilities in leveraged corporates and, potentially, in the nonbank system are elevated by historical standards. An abrupt reversal of the recent supportive financial market conditions or a deepening of ongoing trade disputes represent material risks to the U.S. economy, with concomitant negative outward spillovers. The U.S. public debt-to-GDP ratio is on an unsustainable path and is expected to continue rising throughout the medium-term, as aging related spending rises.

The U.S. current-account deficit decreased to $130.4 billion (preliminary) in the first quarter of 2019 from $143.9 billion (revised) in the fourth quarter of 2018, according to statistics released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). The deficit was 2.5 percent of current-dollar gross domestic product in the first quarter, down from 2.8 percent in the fourth quarter.

Industrial production rose 0.4 percent in May after falling 0.4 percent in April. The indexes for manufacturing and mining gained 0.2 percent and 0.1 percent, respectively, in May; the index for utilities climbed 2.1 percent. At 109.6 percent of its 2012 average, total industrial production was 2.0 percent higher in May than it was a year earlier. Capacity utilization for the industrial sector moved up 0.2 percentage point in May to 78.1 percent, a rate that is 1.7 percentage points below its long-run (1972–2018) average.