Economy in Brief: March 2011

The latest Manpower Inc. Survey suggested that recent improvement in the U.S. labor market will hold steady next quarter. For Q2 2011, the level of the seasonally adjusted diffusion index held at 8 following a downwardly revised 8 in [...]

The National Federation of Independent Business indicated that its index of small business optimism rose to 94.5 in February from an unrevised 94.1 in January. The latest remained the highest level since December 2007. Improvement [...]

There's no way but up for petroleum prices. The pump price for regular gasoline increased last week by fourteen cents to $3.52 per gallon, the highest since October-2008 and more-than double the December-2008 low of $1.61. Typically, [...]

A firmer job market is encouraging consumers to take on more debt, but this time it's not business as usual. During January consumer credit expanded by $5.0B after a revised $4.1B increase during December. Credit has risen strongly [...]

Japan's January business conditions indexes suggest that the Japanese economy has gained the momentum it appeared to have lost in the fourth quarter when the Gross Domestic Product fell by 1.1% on a seasonally adjusted annual rate. [...]

Weather effects faded last month and the U.S. job market showed clear signs of improvement. Nonfarm payrolls increased 192,000 and added to a 63,000 increase during January, initially reported as 36,000. The December figure also was [...]

Europe's PMI index for services from Markit was revised lower from its preliminary reading but still managed to make a month-to-month gain. Germany's index actually dropped month-to-month as did the UK's service sector index. As a [...]

The U.S. nonmanufacturing sector showed improvement last month. The February Composite Index for the service and construction sectors from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) rose to 59.7 from 59.4 in January. The latest beat [...]