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The U.S. economy expanded by 7 percent in 2021’s fourth quarter and 5.6 percent for all of 2021, the Commerce Department reported.
The results edged past the department’s estimates of 6.9 and 5.5 percent, respectively.
And for the week ending 5 February, a total of 1,476,000 eligible Americans were receiving jobless payments, down by about 112,000 from the week before and the fewest since March 14, 1970, the U.S. labor department reported.
In the week ending 19 February, the number of new claims for unemployment benefits dropped by 17,000 to 232,000, the department said, 3,000 less than the number forecast by economists Bloomberg surveyed.
New claims’ four-week average declined by 7,250 to 236,250, the third consecutive week of lower numbers.
TREND FORECAST: With the economy and the demand for labor growing as the COVID War began winding down, as we had forecast it would, there was belief on the Street that the strong GDP and job growth would continue.
However, now, with the Ukraine War heating up and as a result of its widespread economic and geopolitical implications, those expectations will be lowered.
Indeed, if there is a 9/11 incident to any degree, the nation will go into lockdown, economic growth will rapidly decelerate and unemployment will escalate.
In turn, these negative implications will be positive for safe-haven assets.