US manufacturers report that output fell during US shutdown October 24, 2013 OUTPUT in the US manufacturing sector fell for the first time in over four years during this month, according to a survey released yesterday by data firm Markit. The overall figure for the manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) fell to 51.1, indicating very marginal growth, the lowest level in a year. The output part of [...]
Bottom Line: Revamp can’t happen fast enough October 24, 2013 CHANGE can be good – great even – but it always come with risks. For months now Debenhams’ flagship Oxford Street store has been covered in scaffolding, with shoppers pointed towards a temporary entrance before being directed into a store that looks more like a building site than a shopping haven. All signs point to the [...]
A sci-fi treat with plenty of brains October 24, 2013 FILM ENDER’S GAME Cert 12a | By Simon Thomson Four Stars ENDER’S Game is a science fiction adventure about a special boy, sent to a special school, where he is trained to be a ruthless war commander. Basically, it’s Harry Potter. If he’d been sent to a military academy. In space. The internet has been [...]
US jobs data pushes easing taper away October 22, 2013 THE LONG-awaited tapering of the US Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing (QE) programme is likely to be pushed back further, after the US jobs figures released yesterday failed to meet expectations. The non-farm payrolls data for September, which was delayed by more than a fortnight by the shutdown of the federal government, shows that 148,000 jobs [...]
London Report: FTSE at highest close since May on good results October 22, 2013 THE FTSE 100 scaled five-month highs yesterday, supported by expectations the US Federal Reserve will not trim stimulus any time soon and by a crop of strong updates from the likes of Reckitt Benckiser. A disappointing US jobs report suggested that momentum in the world’s top economy had already started to slow in September. With [...]
New York Report: S&P hits record after weak US jobs numbers October 22, 2013 THE DOLLAR slid to a two-year low against the euro and global equity markets rose for a fifth straight session yesterday after weak US jobs data reinforced expectations the Federal Reserve will keep its easy money policy intact into 2014. The S&P 500 closed at a record high, while US Treasuries’ yields fell to the lowest [...]
Awful jobs data sends US stocks to new records October 22, 2013 Markets are back to interpreting bad news as good, and good news as bad. With expectations that the Federal Reserve won't begin tapering pushed back until sometime in 2014, traders expect that poor economic news will keep Fed policy loose for longer – which is positive for equities. So really bad labour market data is [...]
One chart that shows how the federal shutdown hit the US economy October 22, 2013 Despite having avoided a US government default, the economic damage of the temporary October shutdown can't be so easily undone. We're beginning to see data releases for those weeks now, and they're beginning to reveal a grim economic picture. Betsey Stevenson of President Barack Obama's Council of Economic Advisers has pointed to this chart: We'll [...]
US jobs number misses expectations but unlikely to affect Fed tapering decision October 22, 2013 We've finally seen a nonfarm payrolls (NFP) print after weeks of waiting. Delayed by the shutdown, the newest data shows weak job additions in September, with 148,000 jobs created. Consensus forecasts suggested that we'd see 180,000 jobs added. The unemployment rate falls from 7.3 to 7.2 per cent (the lowest since November 2008), with average [...]
Fed’s Evans says decision on taper will be tough at December meeting October 21, 2013 IT WILL be “tough” for the Federal Reserve to have sufficient confidence in the strength of the US recovery by its meeting in December to start scaling back its massive bond-buying campaign, one of its senior officials said yesterday. “October is a tough one. December? I think we need a couple of good labour reports and [...]