Economy in Brief: September 2020

• A shift from multiplicative to additive seasonal factors causes break in seasonally adjusted data, shifting focus to not-seasonally-adjusted data. • Not seasonally adjusted state initial jobless claims rose to 833,352 in the week [...]

• Output per hour growth revised up on a smaller fall in output than initially estimated. • The rise in unit labor costs revised down on stronger productivity and slightly weaker compensation growth. In the second quarter of 2020, [...]

Germany's retail sales slipped in July falling by 0.3% despite substantial government efforts to support growth and consumer spending. Some had the hoped that with stimulus Germany might become a bit of a locomotive for European [...]

• Factory orders strength is broad-based. • Motor vehicle shipments are exceptionally strong. • Inventory decumulation is widespread. New orders for manufactured goods increased 6.4% (-6.2% y/y) during July and repeated the June gain, [...]

• Medium-sized payrolls recover, while large payroll growth improves further. • Employment gain falls short of expectations. Labor market improvement continued during August. The ADP National Employment Report indicated that nonfarm [...]

• Applications for both purchase and refinancing loans fell. • The rate on the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage declined and is only 3 basis points above its all-time low reached on August 7. Even though fixed mortgage interest rates fell [...]

Many analysts think stock markets are walking on glass or eggshells, but they act like they are walking on sunshine. Alan Greenspan, former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman's best-remembered remark about the U.S. stock market was his [...]

• Monthly increase shows biggest gains in domestically-made vehicles. • Year-to-year decline shrinks. The Autodata Corporation reported that sales of light vehicles rose 4.5% last month (-11.7% y/y) to 15.18 million units (SAAR) from [...]