Economic Data

This chart was put together by David Rosenberg of Gluskin Sheff. It shows that wage growth in the U.S. is not keeping pace with inflation. For the statistical recovery to continue sustainably, we will need to either see this trend reversed.…

From the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia: The survey’s broadest measure of manufacturing conditions, the diffusion index of current activity, increased from 35.9 in February to 43.4 this month (see Chart). This is the highest…

By Kevin Brekke

US dollar remains firm across on the board as risk-off dominates. FOMC meeting unlikely to surprise and Empire manufacturing should remain firm, while German Zew confidence dropped to 14.1, below expectations. Growth-sensitive currencies…

We have found that the correlation between oil and the Canadian dollar has collapsed. We conduct the correlation analysis on a 60-day rolling basis, using percent change. The correlation peaked at the end of last year near 0.76. It now…

Here are a few bullet points that outline some of the major takeaways from this job report. I have put them in pro versus con format, with pro being good data and con being bad data. PRO The headline numbers of 8.9% unemployment…

The US Department of Labor released the Employment Situation Summary for February 2011 this morning at 830ET. The data showed an increase of 192,000 jobs from non-farms payrolls with the headline rate of unemployment declining to 8.9% from…

With the jobs numbers coming out tomorrow, it bears noting that the official U.S. data have been marred by low labour participation rates. The reality is that while the jobs picture is improved, many of the long-time unemployed have dropped…

Initial jobless claims fell to 368,000 in the last week. This is the lowest level in nearly three years and demonstrates that the sluggish employment market is slowly improving. Yesterday, the private payroll company ADP said that the…

Nationwide Chief Economist Robert Gardner doesn't think so? Yesterday, he spoke on CNBC Europe about why he sees continued housing stagnation in the UK. Gardner says an improvement in the labour market is what the UK needs to see the…