Interest Rate Roundup

Thursday, August 28, 2008

GDP up 3.3%, jobless claims elevated

I've been extremely busy, so haven't had time to post much here. I also have to travel soon. So I'll keep this short and sweet: Heading into he holiday weekend, we've gotten some better news on the economic growth front. Revisions show GDP rose at 3.3% annual rate in the second quarter, versus a prior estimate of 1.9%. Exports were the big driver of growth, adding 3.1 percentage points to GDP. That was the most going all the way back to 1980.

Meanwhile, initial jobless claims filings dipped to 425,000 from 435,000 in the previous week. But continuing claims rose to 3.423 million from 3.359 million. That's the highest since November 2003, and more evidence that the labor market remains weak here in the U.S.

The market reaction? Stocks are up notably, while the long bond futures are off about a half point. The dollar index has been all over the map -- up, then down, and now back up a couple of basis points.

1 Comments:

  • Question: How do you check to make sure you are not overshooting on the conservative side in your analysis. We are in agreement on a lot of issues regarding the credit meltdown. Did the monoline insurers loss of AAA status and financial difficulties have the impact on the bond markets you thought is would?

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at August 28, 2008 at 1:48 PM  

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