Economy in Brief: 2020

• Both exports and imports increase. • Real trade balance also widened, points to meaningful drag on Q3 GDP. The U.S. trade deficit in goods and services widened further in August to $67.1 billion from $63.4 billion in July (revised [...]

It's always tough to generalise about emerging market (EM) economies. Even knowing if they are emerging economies can be tricky as they are classified in different ways by different organisations. China's role and relative dominance [...]

The composite PMIs in September (manufacturing and services or nonmanufacturing) show more improvement month-to-month. There are fewer countries with PMI values below 50 indicating contraction, but both the averages and medians [...]

• Service sector activity remains firm. • Component activity is mixed. • Strength in pricing power lessens. The Composite Index of Services Activity from the Institute for Supply Management increased to 57.8 during September and [...]

The National Association for Business Economics retained its projection for 3.6% growth in real GDP during 2021. This follows a record recession this year, with GDP expected to contract 4.3%, versus the prior forecast of a 5.9% [...]

• Private service-sector hiring slows. • Earnings growth eases. • Jobless rate declines to six-month low. Nonfarm payroll employment increased 661,000 during September (-6.4% y/y) after rising 1.489 million in August, revised from [...]

• Factory orders growth decelerated to 0.7% in August. • Shipments down to 0.3%. • Order backlogs continue to get filled while inventories were unchanged. Manufacturers' orders slowed more than expected in August growing just 0.7% [...]

• Private service-sector hiring slows. • Earnings growth eases. • Jobless rate declines to six-month low. Nonfarm payroll employment increased 661,000 during September (-6.4% y/y) after rising 1.489 million in August, revised from [...]