Economy in Brief

The Conference Board reported that its Index of Help-Wanted Advertising held at 30 in September after having dropped the prior month to a new forty five year low. During the last ten years there has been a 57% correlation between the [...]

Initial claims for unemployment insurance last week rose 8,000 and reversed the little revised 9,000 worker decline during the prior period. At 308,000 claims remained low but up slightly from the lowest levels near 280,000 reached [...]

The median sales price of a new single family home fell 9.3% to $217,000 during September. Though the August level of prices was revised up, the year to year change of -9.7% was the worst since 1970 and it lowered prices below the [...]

Orders for civilian aircraft & parts nearly tripled m/m during September and propelled total new orders for durable goods up 7.8%. That followed a little revised 0.1% dip during August and it beat Consensus expectations for a 2.0% [...]

Orders for civilian aircraft & parts nearly tripled m/m during September and propelled total new orders for durable goods up 7.8%. That followed a little revised 0.1% dip during August and it beat Consensus expectations for a 2.0% [...]

A week ago, we wrote here about further deterioration in trade accounts in Europe for August as energy costs continued to raise import values. We called this "Old News", since we knew already that petroleum prices had already started [...]

The target interest rate for Federal funds was held steady at 5.25%, where it has been since late June, at today's meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee. Voting against the decision for the third consecutive meeting was [...]

The National Activity Index (CFNAI) from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago dropped to a negative 0.51 in September, the third negative monthly reading in a row. As a result, the three-month moving average of the CFNAI fell to -0.25, [...]