Economy in Brief

Finally, an improved jobs report after two months of disappointment. Nonfarm payrolls rose 117,000 during July following increases during the prior two months that were revised upward by a collective 56,000. The latest gain compared [...]

German orders picked up in June. After falling sharply in May foreign orders surged in June by enough to make up for the May drop. Domestic orders remain in a funk, rising by just 4.6% over 12-months compared to a rise of 13.2% for [...]

Reported yesterday, manufacturing orders fell 0.8% during June after a little-revised 0.6% May increase. Consensus expectations were for a 0.7% decline. For durable goods only, orders fell 1.9% which was revised up slightly from the [...]

Initial unemployment insurance claims slipped last week to 400,00 from a revised 401,000, initially reported as 398,000. The latest figure remained the lowest since the first week of April. Consensus expectations had been for 405,000 [...]

This summer has started out with indications of economic weakness relative to the lethargic Q2. The July Composite Index for the service and construction sectors from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) fell to 52.7 from an [...]

The outplacement firm of Challenger, Grey & Christmas reported that job cut announcements during July surged. The nearly two-thirds m/m gain to 66,414 brought them to the highest level since March of last year. The uptick in [...]

Services, while generally viewed as nontradables, are showing a remarkably consistent drop across the largest most developed economies. That is interesting since these sectors are not linked by trade by are captives of their [...]

Their estimate missed the mark for June, but again, in its latest National Employment Report, the payroll processor Automatic Data Processing (ADP) and economic consultants Macroeconomic Advisers, indicated that job growth has firmed. [...]