Economy in Brief: 2011

Manufacturing orders pulled back 1.2% during April after a 3.8% March jump, revised up from 3.0%. Consensus expectations were for a 1.0% decline in total factory orders. For durable goods only, orders fell an unrevised 3.6%. As [...]

Initial claims for jobless insurance slipped last week to 422,000 from 428,000 during the week earlier, revised from 424,000. The latest figure was slightly higher than Consensus expectations for 419,000 claims. The four-week moving [...]

Lower consumer confidence can quickly translate into less spending. That seems to have been the case during May. Consumer Confidence dropped 7.9% last month according to the Conference Board. Today's news is that unit sales of light [...]

The Composite Index of activity in the factory sector from the Institute for Supply Management dropped sharply last month to 53.5 from an unrevised 60.4 in April. On many counts, the figure was a disappointment. It was the lowest [...]

The outplacement firm of Challenger, Grey & Christmas reported that layoffs during May rose a slight 1.8% m/m to 37,135, but that still was nearly the lowest level since June, 2000. The uptick in layoffs was led by the [...]

The chart shows the weakening trends in the level of the EMU MFG PMI and the UK PMI. The UK is falling off sharply over the past few months but the drop this month was the sharpest in Germany and in Ireland. The Greece, the UK and [...]

Intuit compiles data covering small business employment and the figures indicate that jobs have been improving with the economic recovery. The 0.2% m/m gain in the May Employment Index was similar to gains since last Fall. The gains [...]

These are confusing times for energy prices -- gasoline is down with the weak economy and less driving, but crude oil and natural gas are up. Last week, the pump price for regular gasoline fell to $3.79 per gallon though it remained [...]