Economy in Brief

The OECD leading indicator tells a solid story of business expansion past and future. The current reading is not quite what we would like, however. The rise in these indicators that came – on a six month change basis - in March of [...]

Oh, well. Nonfarm payrolls declined 4,000 in August, the first monthly decrease since August 2003. Needless to say, forecasters and market participants are surprised at this outcome; the consensus expected a pickup to a 113,000 gain [...]

The OECD leading indicator tells a solid story of business expansion past and future. The current reading is not quite what we would like, however. The rise in these indicators that came – on a six month change basis - in March of [...]

UK industrial production trends are not uniform. Consumer durable and nondurable goods output has been steadily - and in the recent period - strongly expanding. That makes the UK unlike most EMU countries with its strong consumer [...]

Initial claims for unemployment insurance fell sharply last week and more than reversed the prior week's large increase. Claims for the week ending 8/30 fell 19,000 to 318,000. Consensus expectations were for 328,000 claims. The prior [...]

The non-manufacturing sector Business Activity Index for August was unchanged from its July level of 55.8, according to the Institute for Supply Management. Consensus expectations had been for a decline to 54.5. Since the series' [...]

Nonfarm labor productivity was revised to 2.6% in Q2 from 1.8% reported a month ago. The revision was marginally above market forecasts, which called for 2.5%, based on the most recent revision to GDP. Compensation per hour last [...]

UK industrial production trends are not uniform. Consumer durable and nondurable goods output has been steadily - and in the recent period - strongly expanding. That makes the UK unlike most EMU countries with its strong consumer [...]