NEW YORK (Reuters) â€" New U.S. claims for unemployment benefits plunged by 16,000 last week to 453,000, a sign that labor markets may be strengthening modestly.
GDP:
U.S. economic growth was a touch higher in the second quarter than previously estimated due to upward revisions to consumer spending and business inventories, but a surge in imports kept the recovery on a weak path, a government report showed on Thursday.
NEW YORK PMI:
Business activity in New York City rose in September for the first time in four months, suggesting the economy is improving, according to an industry report released on Wednesday.
KEY POINTS: * Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast that claims would come in at 460,000. The government revised the prior week's figure up to 469,000 claims. * The four-week moving average of claims, considered a better measure of underlying labor market trends, fell 6,250 to 458,000, its lowest level since July 24. * Gross domestic product growth -- which measures total goods and services output within U.S. borders -- was revised up to an annualized rate of 1.7 percent from 1.6 percent, the Commerce Department said in its final estimate.
COMMENTS:
OMER ESINER, CHIEF MARKET ANALYST, COMMONWEALTH FOREIGN
EXCHANGE INC, WASHINGTON:
"Overall, the data looks a little better than expected, but still not really enough to dismiss talk of additional Fed policy easing in November. It's encouraging to see that jobless claims are trending lower now. And also it looks like the U.S. economy entered the third quarter with a little bit more momentum than previously expected. It's particularly encouraging to see consumer spending come in a little bit higher than expected.
"The trend of dollar weakness is likely to continue, unless we see some major upside surprises to U.S. data that will begin to reduce expectations of policy easing from the Fed."
JIM BARRETT, SENIOR MARKET STRATEGIST, LIND-WALDOCK, CHICAGO
"It points a little better for the economy. If stock futures hold, it could embolden the bulls to take the market higher. For bonds, this will take a little less urgency to lock in these yields."
OLIVER PURSCHE, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, GARY GOLDBERG
FINANCIAL SERVICES, SUFFERN, NEW YORK
"We have been in the camp of a square root-shaped recovery, where we'll gradually continue to improve. Certainly the jobless claims, its still poor, but gradually improving. GDP is in the neighborhood of the 1.5 percent that we were expecting, so that's not a big deviation.
"What that means for investors is that the more and more of this type of data, the more evident it will become that the risk of a double-dip recession is almost nonexistent, even when you account for some of the euro-debt fears and other forces that are negative that are out there. They are at least balanced out by the positive news that's coming out in terms of our economy and other parts of the world that are growing at a much faster rate. It absolutely proves that we're in at least a slow-growth environment, which is better than no growth."
MARKET REACTION: STOCKS: U.S. stock index futures turned positive BONDS: U.S. Treasury debt prices pared gains DOLLAR: U.S. dollar cut losses
Powered By iWebRSS.comsonos zp120
No comments:
Post a Comment