Economy in Brief: January 2012

The labor market realized another improvement last week. Initial claims for unemployment insurance fell to 372,000 last week from 387,000 the week earlier (revised from 381,000). The latest reading was the lowest since May, 2008. [...]

Improvement in the job market continued to pick up steam last month. According to the payroll processor Automatic Data Processing (ADP) and economic consultants Macroeconomic Advisers, private nonfarm payrolls grew 325,000 (0.3% m/m) [...]

Last year was a good one for auto makers. December's unit sales of light vehicles of 13.56M (AR) rose 8.4% from one year earlier. That pulled full year sales to 12.78M, up 10.4% after 2010's 11.6% gain. Last month's sales were nearly [...]

Manufacturing orders jumped an expected 1.8% (11.6% y/y) during November following a little-revised 0.2% October slip. Higher orders for durable goods powered the increase with a 3.7% rise, roughly unchanged from the advance report. [...]

Shoppers felt the urge to spend (a lot) during the holiday season. Chain store sales jumped another 1.2% last week (5.3% y/y) to a record high. During the last ten years there has been a 66% correlation between the y/y change in chain [...]

It is hard to say with a straight face to anyone involved in markets that things in Europe are looking better. But the EMU PMIs for MFG and now for services each have taken a turn for the better in December. Yet Euro bourses, fixed [...]

Supply uncertainties recently increased petroleum prices. The price for a barrel of light sweet crude rose last week to $99.77 and remained up sharply from $79.71 averaged during the first week of October. Yesterday, the price jumped [...]

Intuit compiles data covering small business employment. Yesterday it reported improvement in December. Last month's employment index rose 0.3%. That was a bit slower than earlier gains of 0.4% but it raised the y/y increase to a [...]