Economy in Brief

The labor market has yet to show signs of strength, but at least its not showing much sequential deterioration either. Initial claims for unemployment insurance fell 6,000 last week to 472,000 from an upwardly revised 478,000 in the [...]

Unit sales of light vehicles showed no forward m/m momentum in August and fell sharply with the comparison to last year's Cash-For-Clunkers sales program. Sales slipped 0.6% to 11.47M units (SAAR) following July's 3.3% rise. (Past [...]

The news from the construction sector continues bleak. Overall, the value of construction-put-in-place fell 1.0% during July after earlier months' figures were revised sharply lower. The July decline was double the Consensus [...]

According to the outplacement firm of Challenger, Grey & Christmas the level of layoffs during August fell to 34,768, the smallest number since June of 2000. The level remains down by more than one-half from last year. Planned layoffs [...]

Deterioration in factory sector activity paused last month. The August Composite Index from the Institute for Supply Management rose to 56.3 from 55.2 in July after three consecutive months of decline. Consensus expectations had been [...]

Following six consecutive months of modest recovery, the payroll processor ADP, in their latest National Employment Report, indicated that private nonfarm payroll levels fell slightly during August. The 10,000 worker decline followed [...]

While the monetary authorities and the politicians scramble to develop policies to stimulate Japan's faltering economy, more and more actual data are being released confirming the need for such activity. The July Industrial Production [...]

The Conference Board indicated that consumer confidence rebounded moderately this month following two months of sharp decline. Their consumer confidence index rose 4.9% m/m to 53.5 following a 6.1% July decline that was less than [...]