Economics Update

Retail sales numbers courtesy of Calculated Risk

It's Jobless Thursday, and initial claims rose by 4,000 to 558K, with the 4 Week moving average increasing to 565K from 556.5K, and continuing claims, falling by 141K to 6.2 million, though for the latter, I'm not sure how much is people exhausting claims and moving to extended benefits, and how much is people finding work.

My money is on a negative interpretation of the data, what with retail sales falling in July. (see graph pr0n)

In Europe, Germany's and France's GDP both rose at an annual rate of 0.3%, which has people shouting that they've left the recession, but a recession is more than raw GDP numbers, and industrial output in the EU tanked in June.

I'm a pessimist....I see it as a pause, not a reversal, we still have more down to go.

All in all, when one considers the that 35% increase in bankruptcy filings in the 2^nd quarter , the abysmal foreclosure numbers, and the fact that video game sales are down for the 5^th straight month, I just don't basis for anything like a robust recovery.

In T-Bill news, I'm very confused.

First, the 3-year notes rose, then the 10 year notes fell, and today, 30 year Treasuries rose, and I cannot make any sense of that. (bonds rising=yields falling, and vise versa)

If Treasuries continue to rise though, it might reverse the reverse the rise in rates that has a depressed mortgage demand.

In any case, the economic news from Europe had the dollar tanking versus the Euro, to $1.4295:€1.0000, and it also pushed oil marginally higher.