Economy in Brief: December 2015

Nonfarm payrolls grew 211,000 during November following upwardly revised gains of 298,000 and 145,000 during the prior two months. The increase outpaced expectations for a 200,000 gain in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. The rise [...]

German orders snapped a three-month losing streak to rise by 1.8% in October month-to-month. Both foreign and domestic order rose in October. Foreign orders had fallen for three months in a row previously and domestic orders had [...]

Nonfarm payrolls grew 211,000 during November following upwardly revised gains of 298,000 and 145,000 during the prior two months. The increase outpaced expectations for a 200,000 gain in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. The rise [...]

New orders in the manufacturing sector rebounded 1.5% during October (-5.7% y/y) following a 0.8% September decline, revised from -1.0%. The increase roughly matched expectations in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. It was led by [...]

The outplacement firm of Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported that job cut announcements during November fell to 30,953 (-13.9% y/y) following the prior month's decline to 50,504. The latest level was nearly the lowest of the [...]

Note that the graph presented here is a two-scale plot on the level of vehicle registrations and the level of the retail sale volume index. Both retail sales and motor vehicle registrations are well off peak. MV registrations are back [...]

Improvement in service sector business activity slowed substantially during November. The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) Composite Index of Nonmanufacturing Sector Business fell sharply to 55.9 and reversed the unrevised [...]

Initial claims for unemployment insurance increased to 269,000 (-10.7% y/y) in the week ending November 28 from an unrevised 260,000 the previous week. The Action Economics Forecast Survey expected 267,000 filings. The four-week [...]