Stock O'holics Investing University

[mick]

excerpt; Employment numbers continue to boost hopes for an accelerating economic recovery, as the ADP Employment report showed yet another month of substantial gains in private employment. The report showed that 233,000 jobs were added to non-farm private payrolls in February, after an upwardly revised 284,000 (from 243,000) were added in January.

The unemployment rate remained 8.3% as a result of the 0.2 uptick in the labor participation rate – now 63.9%. Overall this signifies not only continued improvements for labor, but also that the so-called “discouraged workers” who had abandoned the job search are beginning to look for employment again. Hourly earnings increased 0.1% in February, while the average workweek remained 34.5 hours. Consumer credit increased by $17.8 billion in January after increasing $16.3 billion in December, and the three month average is now $18 billion. This is the largest three month increase in consumer credit since the run from August-October 2000.

These trends are restoring the consumer confidence necessary for spending to increase and economic expansion to continue. In other economic news, factory orders fell 1% in January, down from a 1.4% increase in December.

This was less of a drop than feared; analysts expected that the end of the accelerated depreciation tax credit would cause a bigger pullback in investment. The non-manufacturing sector continued to grow, as the ISM Services index increased to 57.3 for February up from 56.8 in January. The United States’ trade deficit increased from an upwardly revised $50.4 billion to $52.6 billion in January, mostly due to an increase in automotive equipment exports and higher petroleum prices.