Economy in Brief

For chain stores, this month's sales began no better than they finished September. Chain store sales slipped 0.1% last week and reversed the prior week's uptick. As a result, sales began October 0.4% below the September average which [...]

The National Federation of Independent Business indicated that its September index of small business optimism ticked up to 88.9 from an unrevised 88.1 in August. Nevertheless, it remained near the lowest level since last July. [...]

The financial turmoil in the Euro Area is taking its toll on the real economy. Earlier this month it was reported that German Industrial Production declined 1.0% in August from July. Since then a number of other countries from the [...]

Consumers may have developed some economic uncertainty. Reported late Friday, overall consumer credit outstanding fell $9.5B following a revised $11.9B July rise, initially reported as $15.5B. An $8.0B increase had been expected by [...]

Last month's reading for jobs growth was better, but not great. Nonfarm payrolls rose 103,000 last month after August and July increases which were upwardly revised. Several factors, however, discount any notion of broad-based labor [...]

They've done this before. Initial claims for jobless insurance rose a slight 6,000 to 391,000,000 last week from 395,000 (revised from 391,000). Together, the two numbers were near the lowest of 2011. However, this reaching for a low [...]

German industrial orders have fallen for the second month running. In July plunging foreign orders took the headline for orders growth into negative territory but in August it was weak domestic orders that dragged the series into [...]

They've done this before. Initial claims for jobless insurance rose a slight 6,000 to 391,000 last week from 395,000 (revised from 391,000). Together, the two numbers were near the lowest of 2011. However, this reaching for a low was [...]