Economy in Brief: March 2008

Initial claims for unemployment insurance last week surged 22,000 to 378,000. The latest was the highest level since September 2005 and claims during the prior week were revised up slightly. Consensus expectations had been for initial [...]

The Conference Board reported that the composite index of leading economic indicators fell 0.3% last month and matched Consensus expectations. A January decline of 0.1% reported initially was revised to show a larger 0.4% drop. It was [...]

Japan’s all-industry index was flat in January. The tertiary index that it tracks so closely was up to 110.3 from 109.5 in December. In terms of year-to-year changes the tertiary and all-industries indices are about the same showing a [...]

The Commerce Department reported that for January total business inventories rose 0.8% after an upwardly revised 0.7% rise in December. The annualized three month growth in inventories rose as a result to 7.7%, its strongest since [...]

Italy’s orders jumped sharply in January but only after an even larger fall in December. As a result the Q1 sales growth for orders in January over the Q4 average is a dismal -1.8%. Foreign orders in Q1 2008 are still rising however [...]

The March index of manufacturing activity in New York State fell to a more negative reading of -22.23 in March after a -11.72 February figure. Expectations were for -6.3. The figures are reported by the Federal Reserve Bank of New [...]

UK order books are high, in the 96th percentile of their range of values since end-2000 in terms of the net balance readings of the CBI survey. Total orders are strong and exports are the highest seen in this seven-plus year period [...]

The Commerce Department reported that for January total business inventories rose 0.8% after an upwardly revised 0.7% rise in December. The annualized three month growth in inventories rose as a result to 7.7%, its strongest since [...]