Economy in Brief: 2011

Initial claims for unemployment insurance rose to 397,000 last week from 371,000, initially reported as 368,000. Consensus expectations had been for 380,000 claims according to Action Economics. Despite the increase, claims remained [...]

The U.S. foreign trade deficit deepened during January to $46.3B versus a little-revised $40.3B in December. Consensus expectations had been for $41.5B. Economic improvement abroad and the lower value of the dollar helped exports jump [...]

German industrial output is up in January after two straight months of decline. The rise was sharp and put the three-month growth rate back into positive territory but that rate still shows deceleration from its six month pace and is [...]

The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that overall mortgage applications increased 15.5% last week. The jump pulled applications 13.9% above the February average. Nevertheless, applications were up just modestly from nearly the [...]

Consumers began the month in a mood to spend. Sales at chain stores jumped 2.3% during the first week of March following a modest slip that ended last month. The gain lifted sales 2.8% above the February average after that month's [...]

The Value of Manufacturing New Orders in Germany were strong in January, up 3.7% from December. Following the peak of 129.6 (2005=100) reached in November 2007, the value of new orders dropped 39% to 79.2 in February, 2009. The [...]

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 [...]