Economy in Brief

The Federal Reserve's financial accounts data (formerly known as the "flow of funds") for Q4 show total credit market borrowing at a $3.12 trillion annual rate, compared with $1.75 trillion in Q3 and the largest amount since Q1 2008. [...]

The Federal Reserve's financial accounts data (formerly known as the "flow of funds") for Q4 show total credit market borrowing at a $3.12 trillion annual rate, compared with $1.75 trillion in Q3 and the largest amount since Q1 2008. [...]

Nonfarm business sector productivity improved 1.8% last quarter (1.3% y/y), revised down from last month's estimate of 3.2% growth. That followed a little-revised Q3 increase of 3.5%. The gain fell short of expectations for a 2.5% [...]

Orders to all manufacturers fell 0.7% (+2.0% y/y) during January following a 2.0% December decline, revised from -1.5%. Consensus expectations had been for a 0.3% slip. Last month's decline reflected an unrevised 1.0% drop (+4.6% y/y) [...]

The outplacement firm of Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported that job cut announcements edged down slightly to 41,835 (-24.4% y/y) during February but only dented the prior month's jump. Layoffs declined m/m in the retail, [...]

German orders returned to their expansion path in January. Orders rose by 1.2% in January after slipping by 0.2% in December. Foreign orders rose by 1% while domestic orders advanced by 1.6% in January. Foreign orders rose for the [...]

The labor market continues to show erratic improvement. Initial claims for unemployment insurance fell to 323,000 in the week ended March 1 from 349,000 in the prior week, initially reported as 348,000. The latest level was the lowest [...]

The ADP/Moody's National Employment Report indicated a 139,000 rise (1.9% y/y) in nonfarm private sector jobs during February. Expectations were for a 157,000 gain in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. Last month's rise followed [...]