Economy in Brief: November 2011

German IP turned sharply lower in September falling by 2.7% month-to-month as its 12-month growth rate held at 5.4%. In the just-completed third quarter German IP still put on a good show as it rose at a 7.1% rate mostly on the back [...]

Consumers rediscovered an interest in using credit for purchases during September. The Federal Reserve reported that overall consumer credit expanded $7.4B following a little-revised $9.7B drop during August, initially reported as [...]

Indonesia has become a favorite of the international investment community. The stock market, Jakarta Composite (Aug. 1982=100) is currently at 3,778.28, more than three times its value on October 28, 2008, 1,111.39, its the low point [...]

Nonfarm payrolls grew just 80,000 during October but the September and August gains were revised up. Consensus expectations had been for a 100,000 increase in jobs last month. Altogether, these latest gains leave growth in employment [...]

EMU no longer ‘at your service’- The Euro-Area service sector survey from Markit registered a sharp drop in October. It comes on the heels of a sharp drop in September. The two month drop of over five points in the services sector [...]

New Day! (same old problems and options) - Under a new Central bank head, Mario Draghi, the ECB has just voted to cut its key lending rate by 0.25%. While no panacea, it is a long awaited move and it comes amid political and economic [...]

Manufacturing orders rose 0.3% during September following a 0.1% August uptick, revised from the 0.2% slip reported last month. A 0.2% September dip had been expected. For durable goods only, orders fell 0.6%, roughly unchanged from [...]

The service sector just can't generate improvement. The Composite Index for the service and construction sectors from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) was 52.9 last month versus an unrevised 53.0 during September. The figure [...]