Economy in Brief: 2014

Hiring growth in November continued on a par with earlier months, according to the ADP/Moody's National Employment Report. Private sector employment grew 208,000 last month following a 233,000 October increase, revised from 230,000. [...]

Sales of light vehicles improved 5.6% y/y to 17.20 million units (SAAR). Purchases were up 4.5% versus October when they totaled 16.46 million, little-changed from the prior month. Purchases of light trucks recovered 6.3% (9.6% y/y) [...]

The value of construction put-in-place recovered 1.1% (3.3% y/y) during October following a 0.1% September slip, revised from -0.4%. Despite the latest gain, forward momentum continued to fade. The increase exceeded expectations for a [...]

Euro-Warfare: The EMU PPI is down by 1.4% year-over-year. Yet all the stories out of Europe are about the European Central Bank and whether it can launch a quantitative easing program or whether that will be blocked. And while the [...]

The price for a gallon of regular gasoline fell to an average $2.78 last week (-15.1% y/y) versus $2.82 during the prior week. Prices remained down versus $3.65 reached in June. To account for seasonal patterns, Haver Analytics [...]

The manufacturing sector on a global basis is expanding in November with five reporting entries contracting (two of them ensconced in the euro area, which itself expanded, but slowed) while 10 showed manufacturing PMI values above 50. [...]

Despite a slip in the November ISM Composite Index of Factory Sector Activity to 58.7, improvement in factory sector activity continues. The latest reading left the three-month average at 58.1, close to its highest level since [...]

Initial claims for jobless insurance during the week ended November 22 jumped to 313,000 from 292,000 during the prior period, revised from 291,000. The Action Economics Forecast Survey expected 285,000 claims in the latest week. The [...]