Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner will caution austerity measures taken by, or perhaps forced on, many European nations could undermine any recovery there. In comments to the House Financial Services Committee, he will say “If every…
Preliminary results of today’s auction on credit default swaps (CDS) on defaulted Greek debt indicate that CDS holders will receive 78.25 eurocents for each euro of face value. The auction has set the fair…
The data from the Philadelphia Federal Reserve, or the Philly Fed, has been released. The business index reached a level of 12.5, up from 10.2 in February and against a Dow Jones target of…
Unemployment is not a national problem. It is a local one. The national rate of joblessness would drop sharply if employment improved even modestly in California, North Carolina, Nevada and Rhode Island, where the…
People near retirement age claim they can’t afford much once they stop working. A new study from the Employee Benefit Research Institute states: Many workers report they have virtually no savings and investments. In total, 60…
CIA World FactbookThe World Bank issued its new data on global poverty. The most prominent part of the report, the one picked up by most of the press, was: More recent post-2008 analysis reveals…
Consumer Confidence measured from the Conference Board is significantly better than the prior month and versus economist expectations. The Conference Board issued a report for February at 70.8, up from 61.5 in January and above…
January unemployment fell to 8.2%. Recent weekly jobless claims have fallen to multiyear lows and are now consistently below 400,000. The figures mask a growing regional jobs problem. It has worsened, at least in comparison…
The Empire state’s Federal Reserve District’s manufacturing index posted its third consecutive gain. Activity in the New York district rose to 19.53 in February from 13.48 in the month of January, considerably higher than…
There has been some hope as unemployment improves nationally that the weakest job markets would outpace the stronger ones. Theses markets would be “catching up” as the tide lifts the entire market for new jobs.…
Americans remained pessimistic about the economy last year. Confidence has improved recently, reaching its highest levels since last spring, but has fallen from -28 in 2010 to -37 in 2011, according to the Gallup Economic…
The Institute for Supply Management has released its purchasing managers index for January and the reading came in at 54.1. This was a point higher than the 53.1 recorded in December and a tad…
German consumer confidence reached a 10-month high this month. Now a new WSJ/NBC poll shows that U.S. consumers are more sanguine than they have been in a year. The signs of a rebound in…
A new report from the United States Council of Mayors claims that only 26 of the country’s 363 metropolitan statistics areas (cities, in layman’s terms) have regained the jobs lost in the recession. Another…
Today’s economic news is not going to be enough so far to drive stocks and bonds meaningfully higher or lower ahead of a three-day weekend. The November report on Trade Balance (the trade deficit)…