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Initial jobless claims fell 29,000 to a seasonally-adjusted 469,000 from a revised 498,000 the prior week. While the fall is certainly welcome, initial jobless claims remain very high more than two years after the recession began in December 2007. Moreover, the four-week average is still quite elevated at 470,750.

The biggest point of weakness in [...]

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The following is a post by Marc Chandler, global head of Brown Brother Harriman’s top ranked Currency Strategy Team. For more of BBH’s currency views, please visit the BBH FX website here.
Highlights

The US dollar was largely weaker vs. the majors as optimism picked up regarding Greece (see below).  EUR/USD traded at its highest level since [...]

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This is a post by Edward Hugh, who also blogs at Global Economy Matters.
In the time of my confession, in the hour of my deepest need When the pool of tears beneath my feet flood every newborn seed There’s a dyin’ voice within me [...]

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This is a post by Edward Hugh, who also blogs at Global Economy Matters.
According to data released today from the Swedish statistical office Sweden unexpectedly fell back into recession in the fourth quarter, adding to the impression there has been a growth dip among Europe’s economies and raising further questions about the durability of the [...]

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The February 2010 Manufacturing ISM Report On Business® was released this morning. It indicated that the manufacturing sector was slightly less robust in February than January, with the PMI slipping from 58.4% to 56.5%. As 50 is still the demarcation between sector expansion and contraction, the data indicate that recovery continues apace in the manufacturing [...]

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This is a post by Edward Hugh, who also blogs at Global Economy Matters.
Global manufacturing activity continued to expand in February, albeit at a slightly weaker pace than in January. At 55.2, down slightly from 56.1 in January, the JPMorgan Global Manufacturing PMI posted its second highest reading in almost four years. The average reading [...]

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Nationwide released it’s monthly house price survey, and it showed the first month-to-month fall in UK house prices since last Spring. However, house prices are still up 9.2% year-on-year according to their survey.
Martin Gahbauer, Nationwide’s Chief Economist, said: 
The price of a typical UK property fell by a seasonally adjusted 1.0% month-on-month (m/m) in February, [...]

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The Department of Labor reports:

In the week ending Feb. 20, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 496,000, an increase of 22,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 474,000. The 4-week moving average was 473,750, an increase of 6,000 from the previous week’s revised average of 467,750.

Bloomberg said economists had predicted 460,000. [...]

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This post originally appeared at Alpha.Sources.
It is a well known dictum in the context of economic analysis that you have to distinguish between stocks and flows and how focus on one in stead of the other lead to misguided analysis. It is the same with growth and levels with the former defined as the growth [...]

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The December 2009 data for the widely followed S&P/Case-Shiller Indices were released this morning.  The data are showing a mixed picture. On the one hand, the unadjusted numbers are down on both a month-to-month and year-over-year basis (Composite-10 and Composite-20 respectively down 2.5% and 3.2% versus December 2008). Only four of twenty markets saw price [...]