Economy in Brief: July 2012

The service sector continues to lose its footing.

Labor market improved further. Initial claims for unemployment insurance fell to 374,000 last week from 388,000, revised from 386,000. Consensus expectations were for 385,000 new claims. The four-week moving average of claims slipped [...]

Unit sales of light motor vehicles during June rose 2.2% to 14.08M (SAAR). The increase made up half of May's decline according to Autodata Corporation. The latest was slightly higher than the Consensus estimate for 13.9M sales, [...]

Job growth rose last month but not by much. Private sector payrolls rose 176,000 in June as reported by the payroll processor Automatic Data Processing (ADP) and economic consultants Macroeconomic Advisers. A 100,000 gain had been [...]

Inventories in the factory sector fell 0.2%, as they did in April. That lessened the y/y rate of inventory accumulation to 3.5%, down from its 13.6% rate one year ago. Lower rates of inventory accumulation occurred across industries. [...]

The start of the Summer driving season hasn't yet helped the price of gasoline. The pump price of regular gasoline declined eight cents to $3.38 per gallon last week. Since early April prices have fallen fifty eight cents (-14.8%). [...]

There are two diffusion indexes that track China's purchasing managers' views of the manufacturing outlook. One is China's official Purchasing Managers Index compiled by the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing and the other [...]

The value of construction put-in-place rose 0.9% during May following a 0.6% April increase. Consensus expectations had been for a 0.2% rise and data back to January 2010 were revised. Private sector spending jumped 1.6% (13.1% y/y) [...]