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Tag Archives: Mark Lieberman

Builder Confidence Slips in February, South Leads Declines

Led by a sharp drop in the South, builder confidence slipped in February to 46--the lowest level since November--the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) reported Tuesday. Economists had expected the Housing Market Index (HMI), a measure of confidence, would improve to 48 from January's reading of 47. Nationally, two of the three index components--current single-family sales and buyer traffic--declined, while the assessment of sales for the next six months edged up.

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First-Time Jobless Claims Drop, Continuing Claims Hit 43-Month Low

Bolstered by favorable seasonal adjustment factors, first-time claims for unemployment insurance dropped 27,000 to 341,000 for the week ending February 9, the Labor Department reported Thursday. Economists expected a much smaller decline to 360,000. Initial claims were under 350,000--a dividing line between a strong and weak labor market--for the third time in the last five weeks, hinting layoff activity has returned to normal.

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First-Time Unemployment Claims Average Hits 5-Year Low

Unemployment

First-time claims for unemployment insurance continued to move sideways, dropping 5,000 to 366,000 for the week ending February 2, the Labor Department reported Thursday. The four-week moving average for first time claims fell 2,250 to 350,000--the lowest level since March 2008, a strong signal of an improving labor market.

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Demand, Credit Terms for Loans Both Ease in Q1

The percentage of banks reporting stronger demand for mortgage loans dropped in the first quarter from the fourth quarter last year, and a slightly greater percentage are reporting easing lending standards, the Federal Reserve Reported Monday. In the case of "traditional" mortgage loans, 4.6 percent of banks reported standards easing somewhat. While the survey results suggest a direction of lending standards, they could be misleading: A bank which has tightened lending standards as much as possible may not ease them but cannot tighten further.

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Commentary: Will Sunday Football Supersize The Economy?

So, there├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔÇ×┬ós some sort of football game this weekend. Like many economists, I├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔÇ×┬óm a bigger baseball fan than football, intrigued by the statistics in baseball, statistically a zero-sum game unlike most other sports. Just about every positive statistic in baseball for one player has a corresponding negative statistic for another. All that aside, there is some linkage between Super Bowl (yes, that's the name of this Sunday's game) and the economy, not just the stock market as many "analysts" like to write.

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Unemployment Rate Up to 7.9% in January, Economy Adds 157K Jobs

If businesses had any reluctance to hire in December because of fiscal cliff concerns, they didn't make up for it in January: Payrolls expanded by 157,000, down from December, but the unemployment rate moved to 7.9 percent from 7.8 percent a month earlier, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported Friday.

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Personal Income Jumps With Fiscal Cliff Dividends

Personal income jumped a staggering 2.6 percent in December, almost four times the 0.7 increase economists forecast, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported Thursday. Part of the December increase, BEA said, was due to "accelerated bonus payments and other irregular pay in private wages in anticipation of changes in individual income tax rates." Personal consumption spending rose 0.2 percent, slightly below the expected 0.3 percent increase. The increase in personal spending--$22.6 billion --came primarily in spending on services.

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Volatile First-Time Jobless Claims Jump Back Up

Unemployment

First-time claims for unemployment insurance jumped 38,000 to 368,000 for the week ending January 26, the Labor Department reported Thursday. Economists expected a smaller increase to 350,000 from the prior week's 330,000 initial claims. The weekly jump in initial claims was the first in three weeks. It reflected, in part, a drop in the seasonal adjustment factor the Labor Department applies to the raw data, which includes holiday workers whose jobs were eliminated.

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FOMC to Continue Low Rates Efforts, Reinvestment Program

Fed

With a nod to the report the nation's economy had contracted in the fourth quarter, the Federal Open Market Committee ("FOMC") voted Wednesday to continue its program of purchasing $40 million a month of mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and to maintain the target Fed Funds rate at 0 to 0.25 percent. The FOMC vote was 11-1 with only Kansas City Fed President Esther George (in her first meeting as a voting member of the committee) voting "no."

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GDP Shows First Post-Recession Decline in Q4

For the first time since the end of the Great Recession, real gross domestic product (GDP) fell in the fourth quarter of 2012, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) reported. According to the BEA, GDP fell 0.1 percent in Q4, performing even worse than economists had expected. The biggest hits to fourth quarter GDP came from a sharp drop in government spending, which fell 6.6 percent from the third quarter. Private investment fell 0.6 percent, primarily due to inventory investments and a fall-off in exports.

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