There was mostly good news for the US economy yesterday, as Reuters reports.
The Institute for Supply Management's services index rose to 60.0 last month from 53.3 in September, beating Wall Street's median forecast for a rise to 57.0...
Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan...in congressional testimony on Thursday, [said] the U.S. economy has good momentum despite some drag from the impact of the hurricanes, although he warned potential inflation remains a concern...
Non-farm productivity, or worker output per hour, grew at a 4.1 percent annual rate from July to September and second-quarter gains were revised higher to 2.1 percent, the Labor Department said in a report on Thursday...
Unit labor costs, a key profit pressure gauge, defied analyst expectations by declining at an annual rate of 0.5 percent in the third quarter...
In a separate report, the Labor Department said new claims for U.S. unemployment benefits fell for a third week...to a seasonally adjusted 323,000 in the week ended October 29 from an upwardly revised 331,000 in the prior week...
Also on Thursday, a government report showed new orders at U.S. factories fell a more-than-expected 1.7 percent in September, as orders for both durable and non-durable goods dropped.
And retail sales in the US continued to hold up well in October, with same-store sales up 4.4 percent, ahead of expectations for a 3.9 percent increase, according to Retail Metrics.
Meanwhile, in Europe, the ECB chose to keep interest rates unchanged yesterday. As The Prudent Investor notes, the ECB took no action, talks only. The talking yesterday can be found here. And for a round-up of earlier talk, the macroblog points to this Reuters article.
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