Initial Claims for Unemployment Fell
February 16, 2010
Initial claims for unemployment benefits fell by 43,000 to 440,000 in the week ending February 6. Continuing claims for the week ending January 30 fell by 79,000 to 4.538 million.
Unexpectedly our retail sales rose 0.5% in January, following a revised 0.1% decrease in December. Economists had anticipated retail sales to rise 0.3% in the month of January. On a year-over-year basis, retail sales increased 4.7%.
Total business inventories unexpectedly fell 0.2% in December due to stronger than anticipated sales. Inventories had risen 0.4% in both November and October. The inventory-to-sales ratio went down or fell to 1.26 during December. That’s below the pre-recession average of 1.28.
The trade deficit grew from 10.4% to an amazing $40.18 billion in December from a $36.40 billion gap in November. Economists had expected the trade deficit to widen to $36 billion. Exports continued to increase to 3.3% to $142.70 billion, the eighth consecutive monthly gain. Imports are on the rise of 4.8% to $182.88 billion.
The Commerce Department said wholesalers cut their inventories by 0.8% in December following a 1.6% rise in November. Meanwhile, sales at the wholesale level rose 0.8% in December, marking the ninth straight monthly gain.
The Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment index for February’s preliminary reading fell to 73.7 from January’s final reading of 74.4. Economists had forecast a higher February reading of 75. One year ago, January’s final reading was 56.3. During the economic expansion that ended in December 2007, the index averaged 88.9.
We have a lot of very important reports on our economic calendar that will be coming out this week among those reports will be on the housing market index on February 16, housing starts and industrial production on February 17, and the index of leading economic indicators on February 18.
One Comment to Initial Claims for Unemployment Fell
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Great post! Unemployment in America is a scary thing for everyone, hopefully the situation continues o improve and become better. Awesome site by the way and thank you
Watch How To Make It In America´s last blog ..Episode 3: Paper, Denim + Dollars
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