Economic Data

By Michael Pettis I recently “debated” twice with senior Chinese officials on the future prospects for China. In both cases they made the argument that Chinese growth rates were going to rise in the next few years and that the current deep…

Here's a brief, late Friday post to follow up on the jobs number. If you look at recoveries from past recessions in the United States, what you usually see is a fall in the year-over-year unemployment rate as the economy gathers steam. And…

There has been a lot of controversy about today's employment situation summary because of comments by Jack Welch, the former GE CEO. Welch suggested on Twitter that the Obama Administration had manipulated the household survey data to give…

When it comes to the euro zone, most eyes are fixed on Spain and Greece where a debt deflationary death spiral has begun. But the economic situation remains fragile in other countries of the so-called periphery. Italy is the largest…

By Marc Chandler The US jobs report was decidedly mixed. There was good and bad news but the bottom line is that the data is still too weak for the Fed to even consider ending its unconventional policy. The economy created a net 114k jobs…

By Win Thin Recent developments in Iran are worth discussing.  We feel that with Middle Eastern political risk on the rise lately, Iran is more likely to have the largest impact on global markets, while escalating tensions between Syria…

The first article here highlights the tenor of recent economic data. The global economy continues to slow, with the US doing relatively better than Europe in the wake of the financial crisis that began five years ago. Nevertheless, slowing…

This is the first of a few daily links posts. Here I want to concentrate on the economy in light of the manufacturing data released earlier today. I was on BNN today for the headline show at 12:30 and I said pretty much the same thing I…

By Marc Chandler The US dollar is going into month and quarter end on a soft note.  The greenback had been generally firm against most of the major foreign currencies, but the Japanese yen, since around mid-month, but the news stream…

A quick post here. Sober Look has posted on Citigroup's economic surprise index, noting that it has started to roll over again, ever so slightly. But the trend is clear for the past two to three months and it has been sharply higher,…