The Incredible Shrinking Trade Deficit
It almost seems too good to be true, but the U.S. trade balance for the month of June came in far better than many were expecting. For many years the market largely has ignored…
Economy
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Newest first · Page 348Weekly Jobless Claims Remains Favorable on Headline Reports
More decent news came out of the Labor Department this Thursday as the weekly jobless claims totaled 361,000 for the past week. The only problem is that we already saw the nonfarm payrolls gains…
America’s Most (and Least) Livable States
Media reports regularly rank the country’s states in terms of their current economic situation, health, jobs and even water quality. But what about their future? That’s what Gallup attempted to find out. On Tuesday,…
Bernanke: It’s Not Just the Economy, Stupid
In videotaped remarks for a meeting of international economists this morning, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke argued that economic measurement “must encompass measures of well-being and its determinants,” as well as the aggregate data…
America: Home to Low-Paying Jobs or Not
Will the United States be a country in which many people have low-paid jobs for more than another generation? Or can a combination of luck and public policy prevent that? The opposing views were highlighted in…
ISM Nonmanufacturing Shows Upside
The Institute For Supply Management is out with its July reading on the services sector. The ISM’s nonmanufacturing report came in at 52.6% for the overall index. This was up from the 52.1% reading…
U.K. Service Sector Growth Slows in July
The Markit/CIPS purchasing managers’ index (PMI) released today indicated that the service sector in the United Kingdom grew at its slowest pace in 19 months in July. This casts fresh doubt over whether the…
Eurozone June Retail Sales See a Slight Monthly Rise
Retail sales in the eurozone came in better than expected, but growth fell off sharply from the previous year, as consumers in the region struggled with the effects of the economic downturn. The EU…
IMF Sees Fiscal Cliff & Euro Crisis As Key Risks To US Growth in 2012 & 2013
The International Monetary Fund still sees growth remaining positive throughout 2012 and 2013. Unfortunately, this pesky “fiscal cliff” and the Euro area crisis are listed as the main risks to the IMF expectations. The…
Factory Orders Drop as Recession Comes Closer to Home
The report on factory orders is out, although we would caution that this is June data and we have already seen so many manufacturing reports from various regional reports that already show July data.…
ISM Shows Second Month of Contraction
We have another contraction from the Institute for Supply Management. The ISM reported that July’s manufacturing PMI came in at 49.8, versus a Bloomberg consensus target of 50.2 for the month. June’s report was…
Sluggish PMI for the U.S. and Eurozone in July
This morning, Markit Economics has released July manufacturing PMI data for the United States, the eurozone and major EU countries. Overall, they show that the manufacturing sector continues to slow due to the sluggish…
Congressional Leaders Reach Deal on Federal Spending
US Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid and House Republican Leader John Boehner have reached an agreement that would continue funding federal government spending for six more months following the expiration of the current fiscal…
Consumer Confidence Visits Recovery Road
The Conference Board’s report on consumer confidence is showing that consumers are magically more confident. The report for July posted a big jump to 65.9, which was well above estimates. Bloomberg had the consensus…
Chicago PMI Dips, Led by Weaker Employment Data
The Chicago Federal Reserve’s report on Midwest manufacturing this week showed some improvement, and now have only a very small conflicting report showing some mixed data from the region responsible for so much of…