Best College Majors Led by Business and Computers
ThinkstockGraduate from college with a major in business or computer science and the odds are strong there will be a job waiting. Graduate with a degree in fine arts or graphic design and begin…
Economy
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Newest first · Page 295S&P Affirms U.S. Sovereign Credit Ratings With Stable Outlook
ThinkstockStandard & Poor’s has affirmed its AA+ rating on the United States of America for its sovereign credit. On top of that, its outlook remains Stable. S&P said that U.S. strengths include its diversified…
Unemployment and Payrolls Bring a Pleasant Surprise
Ed Brown, via Wikimedia CommonsThe U.S. Labor Department issued its Employment Situation Report for the month of May on Friday morning. Frankly, it is making the ADP report look a bit silly. Still, the…
U.S. Standard of Living at Six-Year High
ThinkStockThe standard of living in the United States reached its highest level since 2008, just before the recession caught hold, and the year that Gallup began to collect and report on the data. According…
Weekly Jobless Claims May Mute Unemployment Report Expectations
The U.S. Labor Department has released its final set of data prior to Friday’s key unemployment rate and payrolls figures. Unfortunately, it is a bit weak. Weekly jobless claims rose by 8,000 in the…
European Central Bank Launches Negative Interest Policy Experiment
ThinkstockThe European Central Bank (ECB) has now done something most of have never seen before. It has adopted its own quantitative easing method by adopting at least a partial negative rate environment. Mario Draghi…
Fed Beige Book: Things Are Getting Better!
ThinkstockThe Federal Reserve has issued its latest Beige Book, summarizing the comments received from businesses and other contacts outside the Federal Reserve. While investors flock to this as Fed outlooks, the Fed does note…
What If No Quantitative Easing Comes From the European Central Bank?
ThinkstockIf you have watched the stock market, bond market and the economy in general for the past five years or so, it will be no surprise that the world’s economies and financial markets are…
ISM Signals Slightly Better Economic Recovery Underway
ThinkstockThe ISM Non-Manufacturing Index rose to 56.3 in May from 55.2 in April. The gain might not look like that much, but investors and economic watchers need to consider that this was actually the…
Were Payrolls in May Really as Bad as ADP Claimed?
ThinkstockEvery month traders await the new payrolls and unemployment report from the U.S. Labor Department. This is generally the most widely anticipated number of all economic reports. So, preliminary non-government reports such as ADP…
Wider April Trade Deficit May Drive Down Second-Quarter GDP
ThinkstockThe so-called U.S. trade balance, what the rest of us have referred to for years as the trade deficit, came in at a much worse reading than expected for the month of April: -$47.2…
ADP Sets Disappointing Tone for Unemployment and Payrolls From Labor Department
ThinkstockADP’s report on private sector payroll growth in May may have just dashed some of the expectations for Friday’s key unemployment and payrolls report. ADP reported that private sector employment increased by only 179,000…
Fortune 500 Companies Reach All-Time Sales Record
courtesy of Wal-Mart Stores Inc.The 500 largest corporations in the United States posted profits of more than $1 trillion last year, the first time ever to reach that level and, of course, a new…
ISM Manufacturing Data Signal Much Weaker Growth in May
Thinkstock ISM has reportedly been an error and the numbers are being updated to show more growth rather than lower growth. There were apparently seasonal adjustment errors from ISM. Original article is below: The…
American Cities With Unemployment Under 4%
ThinkstockWhile unemployment remains more than 20% in some of America’s metro areas where the recession still lingers, cities within states that never were damaged deeply by the recession continue to have unemployment rates well…