Renewed Slide in Oil Prices Sent Energy Prices Tumbling US stocks closed sharply lower Monday with the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 marking their biggest point and percentage declines since October as a renewed slide in oil prices (below $50 per barrel) sent energy prices tumbling. The Dow lost 331 points the [...]
US job growth slowed sharply in December ... closing out the year on a surprisingly weak note and potentially complicating the Fed’s plan for its bond-buying program. Payrolls rose by 74,000 last month (of those, 40,000 were temporary positions), a sharp dip from numbers of over 200,000 the prior two months (and job growth of [...]
Some of last week’s economic data include: Businesses managed to create a meager 148,000 jobs in September, which includes an increase of 22,000 government jobs. We are just whizzing along aren’t we? The unemployment rate ticked down to 7.2% but an estimated 136,000 people dropped out of the labor force in the month…these people who [...]
US raw steel production inched up 0.4 percent last week as mills operated at an annual capability utilization rate (ACUR) of 77.9 percent. In the corresponding week last year mills operated at an ACUR of 80.9 percent. On the year mills have operated at an ACUR of 76.2 percent compared to the same period last [...]