Category Archives: Economic News

In a shortened holiday week, only a few memorable economic releases were featured. (-) Consumer spending for April was weaker than expected, falling -0.2% versus an anticipated flat reading and March growth was revised downward a tenth.  Sales as gas … Continue reading →

Labor Markets (+) The initial jobless claims number after seasonal adjustment was 340,000 in the week ending May 18, slightly lower than the expected 345,000.  Filing for first-time unemployment insurance benefits fell by 31,000 compared to the same time last … Continue reading →

  May’s Conference Board Consumer Confidence report is the latest piece of data to suggest that recent months have seen a significant strengthening of the US economic cycle and we are unsurprised that the strong rebound in housing, together with … Continue reading →

Economic Update (+) Retail sales came in quite a bit better than expected for April, with a slight gain of +0.1% for the month relative to a forecasted decline of -0.3%.  In addition, February and March sales were revised upward … Continue reading →

So much economic data was packed into the previous week, last week appeared quite light by comparison. (+) The Federal Reserve’s Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey, which polls 68 U.S. banks and 21 domestic branches of foreign banks, has tended … Continue reading →

It was a busy week from an economic standpoint. (+) The ISM index for April was a bit better than expected, despite a decline from March’s 51.3 to 50.7 (consensus called for 50.5).  The employment component fell 4 points; however, … Continue reading →

  April’s Non-Farm Payroll report is a solid set of data that should go a long way to correcting the unnecessary angst caused by the March report, not least since that month’s data has now been revised up strongly from … Continue reading →

Today, as expected, the Fed Open Market Committee kept the Fed Funds rate on hold (target of 0.00% to 0.25%) and continued their bond-buying program of Treasury and MBS debt on the order of $85 billion a month, although it … Continue reading →

(0/-) The advance estimate of real GDP for the first quarter came in a bit weaker than expected, at an annualized +2.5%.  It was better than last quarter’s +0.4%, but a bit slower than the +3.0% consensus estimate.  However, some … Continue reading →

Every quarter LSA will post our Break Even Analysis that shows the impact of drawdown in an account.  The term drawdown refers to the peak to bottom drop an investment experiences or in simple terms what was the biggest percentage … Continue reading →