Category: TRENDS ON THE U.S. ECONOMIC FRONT

Another 770,000 workers filed new claims for unemployment benefits during the week ending 13 March, the U.S. Labor Department reported. For the week, more than 282,000 gig workers and independent contractors also claimed benefits under the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Program (PUA), a support plan separate from regular state unemployment insurance. In each of the past...

The U.S. dollar has had an unexpected rally and continued strength this year. Its value shrank against other major currencies late last year, a fate we expected would continue as other nations’ economies began to rebound from the global shutdown… and trillions were being pumped into the U.S. economy. Instead, the dollar has gained 2.5...

According to Desmond Lachman, a former deputy director of the IMF’s policy and review office and former economist at Salomon Smith Barney, the U.S. investment market has become “an ‘everything’ asset and credit bubble that is very much larger and more pervasive than in the earlier housing and credit market,” the collapse of which set...

Happy New Year! It was one year ago today, 23 March 2020, that right in front of everyone with open eyes, the United States Federal Reserve Bank (whose former head is now the U.S. Treasury Secretary) proved to the world that money junkies are running the nation’s economy. With the S&P index down some 34...

Gambling that demand for Big Apple apartments will bounce back and rents will rise in response, some landlords are keeping empty New York City apartments off the market, Business Insider reported. Last August, landlords had “warehoused” 5,563 flats, according to UrbanDigs, a real estate analysis firm. The number dropped to 1,814 in February, but that...

While there is a building boom going on in much of the nation as people escape inner cities for suburbs and ex-burbs, the employment levels in the construction industry continue to fall. Only eight states have regained the number of construction jobs they had in February 2020 and 19 states lost building jobs in January...

Although every state now allows indoor restaurant dining to some degree, and 22 states permit eateries to be open at full capacity, 47 percent of potential diners are not ready to enter, according to a late February poll by CivicScience. About 37 percent of respondents were planning to eat inside a restaurant in the week...

At the end of December, U.S. households measured a record net worth of $130.2 trillion, according to an 11 March report by the U.S. Federal Reserve. Net worth is the difference between assets and liabilities. The gain was driven by rising interest rates on bonds, housing prices that climbed 13 percent last year, and a...

New claims for unemployment benefits dropped to 712,000 in the week ending 5 March from 754,000 the week before, the fewest new filings since early November, the U.S. Labor Department reported. In February, U.S. employers added 379,000 jobs, the most since last October, the Department noted. Although the trend is positive, weekly unemployment filings had...

So-called “value” stocks – those trading at low multiples of their net worth – are outperforming growth stocks, such as those in tech, by the widest margin since the tech bubble burst in 2001, Dow Jones Market Data reported. Stocks trading at those low multiples in 2020 tended to be the ones hit hardest by...