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+0.7 point increase to 47.5%, reversing about 1/2 of the 1.5 point plunge seen in Nov. Still, a reading below 50% would continue to point to a contraction in US manufacturing sector, albeit at a slower pace than in Nov. Expectations for a small re-bound in the NAPM index stem from the Dec Philadelphia Fed index which showed a +10.3 point jump to 3.8, as well as the gains in both the Dec Chicago and NY-area manufacturing indexes released last Friday. As usual, the markets will key on the employment, price and new export orders sub-indexes of the overall report. In Nov, the employment index slipped by 0.1 point to 44.9%, holding just above July's 3-1/2 year low of 44.4%. The price index in Nov fell by 0.8 points to 35.0%, holding just above Sep's 49-year low of 34.4%. The new export orders edged +0.9 points higher in Nov to 42.9%, holding under the 50% mark for the 11th straight month. |
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US initial unemployment claims surge in the latest weekInitial unemployment claims rocketed +79,000 workers higher to 368,000 in the week ended Dec 26th. That was far above expectations for a rebound to 310,000 workers. The previous week's report was revised a bit higher to 289,000 workers from the earlier report of 287,000 workers. The +79,000 worker jump in claims marked the sharpest increase in the series in 6-1/2 years. Moreover, that left the series at a new 5-1/2 month high, just below the peak of 394,000 workers seen in the weeks ended June 27th and July 4th (at the height of the impact of the GM strikes and the annual re-tooling effort among auto makers). The 4-week moving average jumped by +13,500 workers to a new 5-month high of 321,250 workers. |
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In the week ended Dec 19th, the number of continuing claims climbed by +17,000 workers to 2.228 million. The 4-week moving average, however, fell by 15,500 workers to 2.234 million workers. |
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Last Thursday's initial unemployment claims report certainly raised some eyebrows in the financial markets, as it has for 3 straight weeks. First, the markets watched the plunge in claims to below the 300,000 worker mark to the 8-1/2 month low of 289,000 workers in the week ended Dec 19th. Now, the |
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