This morning’s December employment situation report showed certain signs of improvement that do indicate a positive trend. However, the fourth quarter of 2009 ended down, consistent with our forecast. The November jobs number was revised to show a month-on-month gain of jobs. The December jobs number was down 0.8 percent from November and down three… Read more

Los Angeles County’s November jobs report showed a moderating unemployment rate of 12.2 percent, down from 12.5 percent in October, due to a decline in the labor force. Payroll job declines improved from 3.8 percent lower than last year in October to 3.5 percent lower than last year in November. The sectors that are getting… Read more

The FED has announced the end of its Treasury issue purchase program. Market commentators are speculating that bond rates will rise, potentially delaying or stifling economic recovery. I am not so sure. While it will be true that the FED-demand-factor will go away there are other factors that influence interest rates. Another important factor that… Read more

The November California jobs report showed the unemployment rate subsiding a bit from 12.5 percent in October to 12.3 percent, the result of a declining workforce and not a result of new jobs. The year-on-year job growth comparison showed that non-farm job level was 4.2 percent less than last November, better than the 4.6 percent… Read more

The United States employment situation improved substantially in November.  The unemployment rate fell a bit and quarter-on-quarter job losses slowed dramatically, almost to zero.  This welcome news has been greeted with rises in equities and a fall in Treasury bonds.  I have attached four charts below. Are we out of the woods?  No.  Is this… Read more

The October California jobs report was released November 20. The statewide unemployment rate increased from 12.3 in September to 12.5 percent in October. We are encouraged by the slight uptick in payroll job counts in October. However, there are still 4.6 percent fewer jobs than a year ago and 6.3 percent fewer than two years… Read more

The BEA’s second estimate of total United States Economic activity, just out today, is 2.8 percent. This is down 70 basis points from the “advance” estimate published a month ago. The change in the estimate was driven mainly by upward revisions to imports and downward revisions to personal consumption expenditures and to nonresidential fixed investment… Read more

The Gartner Group released a new outlook report for the global semiconductor industry yesterday, November 16th. There is a bit of optimism in this report! The group has raised their forecast for 2009 based on recent data. This is the second time the group has raised their forecast in less than three months. From their… Read more

The Association of American Railroads released its Rail Time Indicators report last Wednesday. October United States rail carloads were down 15.3 percent from October 2008 while intermodal traffic was down 11.2 percent. For the first ten months of 2009, rail carloads were down 17.9 percent while intermodal traffic was down 16.2 percent. Canadian carloads and… Read more

Japan stepped up their purchases of United States Treasuries during October to $105 billion dollars, boosting their total holdings of United States Treasury Issues to $731 billion, more than 10 percent of the total market. Japan and China are typically the largest purchasers, by far, of United States Treasuries. Why do we care about this?… Read more