Thu, Nov 18, 2010, 2:31PM EST - U.S. Markets close in 1 hr 29 mins
Daniel Gross is economics editor and columnist at Yahoo! Finance. Follow him on Twitter: @grossdm. Email him at grossdaniel11@yahoo.com.
More economic data today point to a world that is not about to end:
1. The Conference Board reports things are looking up. The Leading Economic Index rose .5 percent in October. The September LEI was revised upward from .3 percent to .5 percent. Translation: The expansion is intact and could strengthen in the spring.
2. First time unemployment claims tick up a bit, but the four-week moving average, at 443,000, is the lowest it's been since before the Lehman disaster. Translation: The labor market is still punk, but mass firings are trending down.
3. The Philadelphia Fed manufacturing index spikes from 1 in September to 22.5 in October. The Index is basically a measure of manufacturers in the mid-Atlantic area who say activity is increasing minus those who say it's decreasing. So, hypothetically, if in September, 30 respondents said activity was increasing and 29 was it was decreasing, then in October, 40 said activity was increasing and only 18 said it was decreasing. The future activity components were also up. Translation: After a summer lull, the goods-producing sector of the economy is pointing up again -- driven by slowly rising domestic demand and overseas growth.
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