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Strategies & Market Trends : The Amateur Traders Corner -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rutgers who wrote (17942)	1/4/2002 9:07:24 AM
From: Kelvin Taylor	Respond to of 19633

Businesses cut payrolls by 124,000 in December, the Labor Department said Friday, pushing the unemployment rate to 5.8%, the highest since April 1995. The unemployment rate for November was revised to 5.6% after previously being estimated at 5.7%. The December employment report includes revisions to data going back five years. Payrolls have been cut for five straight months, with a revised 371,000 jobs being shed in November. It was previously estimated that 331,000 jobs were lost that month. About 1.4 million jobs have been lost since the U.S. entered a recession last March. Despite the continued slide in payrolls, the December report suggests the pace is abating. Nearly a million jobs were shed in the September to November period alone. The U.S. economy has recently begun to show tentative signs of improvement. On Wednesday, the Institute for Supply Management said its index of manufacturing activity in December rose to 48.2 from 44.5 in November, the highest level since October 2000. A reading below 50 indicates that the manufacturing sector is shrinking, which it has been doing since August 2000. Recent reports also show the U.S. housing market remains strong and that consumer confidence is improving. Economists have said even though other reports indicate that the U.S. economy may soon begin growing again, the labor market may take longer to recover, as has been the case during previous business cycles. Because the overall economy is still weak, many analysts believe the Fed will again trim interest rates by a quarter point at its meeting later this month. The Fed cut interest rates 11 times last year. Futures are UP