Economy in Brief: June 2011

There is slippage this month in the European services sector. At this writing the US report on 'services' is still unreleased but the previous US report for April on NonMFG activity in the US took a huge drop one month ahead of the [...]

The two headline figures from the May employment report were dreary. The Bureau of Labor Statistics stated that the 54,000 worker rise in payrolls was the weakest in nearly twelve months and noted that the unemployment rate rose to [...]

Reported yesterday, the value of construction spending rose 0.4% during April following a 0.1% uptick in March, revised down from a 1.4% gain reported last month. Consensus expectations as indicated by Action Economics called for a [...]

The most topical car registration data are for Spain and Italy in May (not in the table). Sales in Italy rebounded by 3.1% in May as sales in Spain continued weak and fell by 0.3% in May. France and Spain are seeing government [...]

Manufacturing orders pulled back 1.2% during April after a 3.8% March jump, revised up from 3.0%. Consensus expectations were for a 1.0% decline in total factory orders. For durable goods only, orders fell an unrevised 3.6%. As [...]

Initial claims for jobless insurance slipped last week to 422,000 from 428,000 during the week earlier, revised from 424,000. The latest figure was slightly higher than Consensus expectations for 419,000 claims. The four-week moving [...]

Lower consumer confidence can quickly translate into less spending. That seems to have been the case during May. Consumer Confidence dropped 7.9% last month according to the Conference Board. Today's news is that unit sales of light [...]

The Composite Index of activity in the factory sector from the Institute for Supply Management dropped sharply last month to 53.5 from an unrevised 60.4 in April. On many counts, the figure was a disappointment. It was the lowest [...]