Economy in Brief

Initial claims for unemployment insurance increased to 234,000 (-2.1% y/y) during the week ended November 24 ...... Continuing claims for unemployment insurance rose 50,000 to 1.710 million (-12.1% y/y) in the week ending November 17 [...]

Manufacturers' orders fell 2.1% (+6.9% y/y) during October following a 0.2% September rise, revised from 0.7%. The Action Economics Forecast survey had looked for a 2.0% decline. Durable goods orders fell 4.3% m/m (+7.8% y/y), revised [...]

The Composite Index of Nonmanufacturing Sector Activity from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) inched up to 60.7 during November from 60.3 in October. The Action Economics Forecast Survey expected a decline to 59.2. The ISM [...]

Output per hour in the nonfarm business sector was revised up to a 2.3% gain at a seasonally adjusted annual rate in Q3'18 (1.3% year-over-year), from the previously reported 2.2% increase. In Q2 productivity growth remained at a 3.0% [...]

The ADP National Employment Report indicated that private nonfarm payrolls increased 179,000 during November following a 225,000 October rise, revised from 227,000. Expectations had been for a 195,000 gain in the Action Economics [...]

Initial claims for unemployment insurance decreased 4,000 to 231,000 (-1.7% y/y) during the week ended December 1 from 235,000 in the previous week, which was revised up by 1,000. As was noted here last week, even though the data are [...]

The U.S. trade deficit in goods and services widened for the fifth consecutive month to $55.49 billion in October from an upwardly revised $54.56 billion in September. This was the largest deficit since October 2008. A deficit of [...]

Germany's factory orders in October rose instead of falling as expected, but the gain was only of 0.3% and it reflected widely different results on domestic vs. international orders. Foreign orders rose by 2.9% in October while [...]