Economy in Brief

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 [...]

The index of total mortgage applications fell 4.3% last week to 734.0 (March 16, 1990 = 100). Despite the decline, applications rose slightly for the full month. Overall, applications have risen more-than 80% since their early-year [...]

The outplacement firm of Challenger, Grey & Christmas reported that job cut announcements during September surged following their August dip. The jump to 115,730 left them more-than double last year. The jump in announcements was led [...]

The Composite Index for the service and construction sectors from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) was 53.0 versus an unrevised 53.3 during August. The figure matched Consensus expectations. Since the series' inception in [...]

The chart demonstrates that the MFG sectors in the across EMU are very tightly connected. The have very similar cycles to the US, too and as the MFG sector begins to sag in this now-weakened recovery period we are seeing the swale in [...]