This is so good it gets posted

Euro bond spreads widening again

Here is a look at European bond spreads from the Atlanta Fed weekly Financial Highlights released today (graph as of Aug 11th):

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From the Atlanta Fed:

Peripheral European bond spreads (over German bonds) narrowed between the June and August FOMC meetings, though they were rising over the past week.

Between the June and August FOMC meetings, the 10-year Greece-to-German bond spread has narrowed by 50 basis points (bps) (from 8.01% to 7.51%) through August 10, though it has risen by 12 bps in the past week. Similarly, with other European peripherals’ spreads, Portugal’s is lower by 54 bps during the period, and Spain’s is lower by 37 bps, though both are up from the week prior.

As of today, the Greece-to-German spread has widened to 7.98% (peaked at over 8%) and the Ireland-to-German spread has increased to 2.88%.

Claims - wkly

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This graph shows the 4-week moving average of weekly claims since January 2000.

The four-week average of weekly unemployment claims increased this week by 14,250 to 473,500.
Highest wkly claims since Feb 2010.

CMI seems to lead pretty accurately

CMI: Let's hope those at the Fed are watching this!!!

August 3, 2010 - 'Daily Growth Index' Turns Sharply Down:

Since last week our 'Daily Growth Index' has dropped significantly, putting the trailing 91-day moving 'quarter' at a contraction level that would place a similar calendar quarter of GDP growth below the 5th percentile of all quarters since 1947. Under normal circumstances we might expect a quarter that bad once in slightly over 5 years:

Not so Productive

Nonfarm productivity - Q/Q change - SAAR 2.8 % 0.0 % -0.8 % to 2.5 % -0.9 % Unit labor costs - Q/Q change - SAAR -1.3 % 1.5 % -1.0 % to 2.0 % 0.2 %

Highlights A 3.6 percent increase in hours worked outpaced a 2.6 percent increase in output, making for a 0.9 percent quarter-to-quarter decline in second quarter productivity and ending five straight quarters of strong growth. In a partial offset, first-quarter productivity was revised 1.1 percentage points higher to plus 3.9 percent.

Drats - Small Biz Survey

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