Economic Update

[Adam in CO]

Last Week in the News Helped by falling oil prices, America's trade deficit fell from an all-time high of $69 billion in August to $64.3 billion in September, a 6.8% improvement, the Commerce Department reported November 9. The $4.7 billion drop was the biggest one-month decline since February 2001. The politically sensitive deficit with China, however, rose to a new record of $23 billion, pushed higher by a flood of Chinese-made televisions, cell phones and toys being imported to stock American store shelves for the holidays.
Addressing the annual Charles Schwab Impact Conference on November 6, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said that the current economic slowdown is "likely temporary" and that the worst of the housing market slump is past. "It is no longer subtracting from [gross domestic product] growth," he added.
Rates on 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages edged up slightly for the week ending November 9, Freddie Mac reported the same day. Rates have seesawed within a narrow range the past six weeks.
For the week ending November 3, the Mortgage Bankers Association's (MBA) Market Composite Index -- a measure of mortgage loan application volume -- increased 8.8% to a seasonally adjusted basis of 620.9 from 570.8 one week earlier.
The Labor Department reported that 308,000 laid-off workers filed for unemployment benefits, down from 328,000 in the previous week. The drop of 20,000 exceeded the decline of 12,000 that many economists were expecting, and showed that the labor market is so far withstanding the overall economic slowdown.
This week look for updates on the Producer Price Index on November 14.