Economy in Brief

Recent labor market improvement backpedaled last month. Nonfarm payrolls rose just 39,000 after an upwardly revised 172,000 October increase. The rise disappointed Consensus forecasts for a 142,000 gain. Also disappointing was the [...]

Symptoms Vs disease - When talking about the EMU and its financial troubles we speak of its banks and the interest differentials paid on government debt and a host of financial data. These financial indicators are the manifestations [...]

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported that October pending sales of existing single-family homes jumped 10.4% m/m. The gain reversed the unrevised September decline and brought sales to the highest level since April, [...]

Unit sales of light vehicles remained unchanged last month versus October at 12.26M units (SAAR). Sales were stronger than expectations for 12.0M. (Seasonal adjustment of these figures is provided by the U.S. Bureau of Economic [...]

Initial claims for unemployment insurance increased last week to 436,000 from 410,000 during the prior period (revised from 407,000). Despite the gain, the trend level continued downward as the four-week moving average fell to [...]

The value of construction put-in-place rose 0.7% during October following an upwardly revised 0.7% September gain. The figure was better than Consensus expectations for a 0.4% decline. These recent, small monthly changes stand in [...]

Expansion in factory sector activity continued during November, as indicated by the Composite Index from the Institute for Supply Management. It slipped to 56.6 from 56.9 in October but the latest was the highest level since May. The [...]

The outplacement firm of Challenger, Grey & Christmas indicated that the level of layoffs during November again increased slightly to 48,711. The level was the least since March. Planned layoffs announced during the first eleven [...]