Economy in Brief: December 2010

As indicated by the advance report on durable goods industries last week, the total manufacturing sector appears to have lost some momentum in the last few months through October. Shipments of manufactured goods rose just 0.3% in [...]

For the third consecutive month the U.S. service sector improved. The November Composite Index for the service and construction sectors from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) rose to 55.0 from 54.3 in October. The latest beat [...]

Recent labor market improvement backpedaled last month. Nonfarm payrolls rose just 39,000 after an upwardly revised 172,000 October increase. The rise disappointed Consensus forecasts for a 142,000 gain. Also disappointing was the [...]

Symptoms Vs disease - When talking about the EMU and its financial troubles we speak of its banks and the interest differentials paid on government debt and a host of financial data. These financial indicators are the manifestations [...]

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported that October pending sales of existing single-family homes jumped 10.4% m/m. The gain reversed the unrevised September decline and brought sales to the highest level since April, [...]

Unit sales of light vehicles remained unchanged last month versus October at 12.26M units (SAAR). Sales were stronger than expectations for 12.0M. (Seasonal adjustment of these figures is provided by the U.S. Bureau of Economic [...]

Initial claims for unemployment insurance increased last week to 436,000 from 410,000 during the prior period (revised from 407,000). Despite the gain, the trend level continued downward as the four-week moving average fell to [...]

The value of construction put-in-place rose 0.7% during October following an upwardly revised 0.7% September gain. The figure was better than Consensus expectations for a 0.4% decline. These recent, small monthly changes stand in [...]