Economy in Brief: September 2010

Consumers are pulling back from their easier-spending ways early this summer. Weekly chain store sales fell 0.4% last week leaving the level at its lowest since the end of June. During the last ten years there has been a 68% [...]

The soft U.S. economy has done nothing to help oil & gas prices. The pump price for regular gasoline held steady last week at $2.68 per gallon, the lowest since February and down from $2.91 in early-May. Nevertheless, prices remained [...]

IP makes lethargic rebound - German IP is up in July after a drop of 0.6% in June. That means IP is lower on balance over two months. July was not much of a 'bounce.' The weakness in IP corresponds with the drop in orders whose [...]

The value of Germany's new orders fell 2.6% in July from June, the first month to month decline since December of last year. The decline was due entirely to a decline in foreign orders as domestic new orders held steady. Total export [...]

German orders rolled over in July after a string of strong gains that extend back to about January. The German orders recovery dates from March of 2009 and from that point there have been only four monthly declines in orders of which [...]

The latest Manpower Inc. Survey suggested that while the U.S. labor market continues to grow, the usual post-recession momentum has yet to emerge. For Q4 2010, the level of its seasonally adjusted diffusion index held roughly steady [...]

The U.S. service sector seems unable to sustain the improvement that began in 2009. The August Composite Index for the service and construction sectors from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) dropped sharply to 51.5 from 54.3 [...]

The title to this month's write-up is exactly the same as last month since there is little to distinguish the two periods... even the bottom-line interpretation is the same. The job market continued soft, though slightly improved, [...]