Forex Investment and Currency Trading

The April employment report showed a slowing in the recession, consistent with the general tone of the recent data. Non-farm payrolls fell 539,000 in April, the smallest monthly drop since October. However, prior months were revised down a net 66,000. Private payrolls declined 611,000, with all sectors outside education cutting jobs. Construction payrolls declined 110,000 and are now down 1.4 million from the peak in January 2007. The manufacturing sector shed 149,000 jobs, which is a moderation in the rate of decline, consistent with the latest ISM survey. Both goods- and service-producing payrolls fell by about 270,000. The decline in [...]

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The advance GDP report showed a steep 6.1% q/q saar contraction in activity in Q1, weaker than expected.  As expected, there was a massive $104 bn liquidation in inventories. This sliced 2.8pp from GDP growth. More than half of the decline in inventories was in the motor vehicle sector as automakers have slashed production in response to the severe drop in demand. The biggest surprise in the report was a 44% q/q saar plunge in nonresidential structures investment. This was twice as bad as expected and marked the biggest quarterly drop in post-war history. This rapid decline reflected a sharp [...]

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The U.S. economy remains weak and recorded an outright negative GDP for Q3 2008. Q4 looks set to be absolutely atrocious, and the same can be said for much of 2009.
As economic woes deepen, credit conditions have begun to unclench slightly, with carious credit spreads beginning to narrow slightly. But several major risks and challenges remain, with the Fed and Treasury throwing a myriad of measures up against the wall to see what sticks.
The scale of government intervention is such that bond supply concerns have become quite prominent, and are battling with a recent Fed commitment to keeping yields low [...]

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Annual loss biggest since end of World War II. Unemployment rate rises to 7.2%.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — The hemorrhaging of American jobs accelerated at a record pace at the end of 2008, bringing the year’s total job losses to 2.6 million or the highest level in more than six decades.
A sobering U.S. Labor Department jobs report Friday showed the economy lost 524,000 jobs in December and 1.9 million in the year’s final four months, after the credit crisis began in September.
The unemployment rate rose to 7.2% last month from 6.7% in November - its highest rate since January 1993.
The steep [...]

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