Economy in Brief: September 2012

The UK trade balance improved moving to a smaller deficit position in July as exports rebounded strongly from a very weak June, gaining back what they had lost. But imports fell, building on losses over the last four months. Year- [...]

Consumer credit declined in July, by $3.3B, seasonally adjusted, the first outright decline since August 2011. However, revisions to recent months raised their amounts, June from $6.5B reported previously to $11.8B in today's data, [...]

The job market is having trouble showing consistent improvement.Nonfarm payrolls grew 96,000 during August following revised changes of 141,000 and 45,000 during the prior two months, earlier reported as 163,000 and 64,000, [...]

paragraphs German Orders and Sales By Sector and Origin Real and SA % M/M % SAAR Jul'12 Jun'12 May'12 3Mo 6Mo 12Mo YrAgo Q-2-D Total Orders % % % % % % % % Foreign 3.0% 1.7% -3.8% 3.2% -0.2% -0.8% 13.1% -3.3% Domestic 1.3% -0.8% 1.7% [...]

German orders rose in July by 0.5%, more than expected. Foreign orders crept higher by 0.1% while domestic orders advanced by 1% on the month. Over three-months and six-months foreign orders are up and their pace of growth is steady. [...]

The Composite Index for the service and construction sectors from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) rose to 53.7 during August from an unrevised 52.6 July reading. The latest matched the highest level since March and beat [...]

The outplacement firm of Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported that 32,238 job cuts were announced during August. That was the lowest level since June, 2000. Job cut announcements fell in the retail, services, transportation, [...]

Initial jobless insurance claims fell to 365,000 during the week ended September 1, the lowest level in four weeks. At 377,000, the prior week was revised up from 374,000. Consensus expectations were for a decline to 370,000 during [...]