Capital Markets Lab Weekly Market Wrap Up, March 1-5, 2010

Current Account Balance: China and the United States The chart below consists of the current account balances of the United States, China, and emerging economies. The Current Account Balance of a country consists of three economic components: the trade balance, net factor income from abroad, and net transfer payments. The trade balance is defined as […]

Capital Markets Lab Weekly Market Wrap Up, February 15–19, 2010

Unemployment Claims Unemployment claims rose unexpectedly from 442,000 claims in the previous week to 473,000 claims in the week ending February 13th, an increase of 31,000. This data is compiled from the U.S Department of Labor and measures the total number of individuals who are claiming unemployment insurance for the first time. Since March of […]

Capital Markets Lab Weekly Market Wrap Up, February 08–12, 2010

European Union Debt Issues Markets this week have been extremely tied to debt concerns in the Euro-zone, specifically Greece. After being downgraded in December, the Greek debt crisis has kept unease in the world markets, causing a flight to safety and selling of risky assets. In January, the country came out and exposed that their […]

Capital Markets Lab Weekly Market Wrap Up, February 01–05, 2010

Economic Data – ISM Non-Manufacturing Business Report On February 3, the U.S. Non-manufacturing Report on Business was released with data on January’s actions.  As seen in the chart above the NMI Index number for the month of January was 50.5, indicating expansion. The index oscillates above and below 50 to indicate expansion or contraction among […]

Capital Markets Lab Weekly Market Wrap Up, January 25–29, 2010

Economic Update This week was ripe with political and economic events. The president delivered the State of The Union address to congress, GDP expanded by 5.7%, Ben Bernanke was reappointed as chairman of the Federal Reserve, new homes sales declined and existing home sales also declined. In his State of The Union address to Congress […]

Capital Markets Lab Weekly Market Wrap Up, January 18–22, 2010

Currencies – EUR/USD This week the global currency market had heavy activity, specifically with the Euro and USD. The overall trade was Dollar strength and Euro weakness, which could be observed in the EUR/USD pair. Since January 12, the pair declined 3.38% (as of January 21);  a considerable move for the pair of currencies. A […]

Capital Markets Lab Weekly Market Wrap Up, December 7–11, 2009

Mortgage Applications This week’s economic events included MBA Mortgage Applications, which is the Mortgage Bankers Association index of loan applications. Based on this new data, loan applications increased 8.5% in last week, WoW (week over week), a large increase from the prior 2.1%. This is very likely due to the historical low mortgage rates, which […]