Watching U.S. economic indicators roll across the newswire over the last month has been like watching scene after scene in a horror movie, says Mike Riddell, a fund manager at M&G Investments in London.
"U.S. house prices have fallen by more than 5 percent year on year, pending home sales have collapsed and existing home sales disappointed, the trend of improving jobless claims has arrested, first-quarter GDP wasn’t revised upwards by the 0.4 percent forecast, durables goods orders shrank, manufacturing surveys from Philadelphia Fed, Richmond Fed and Chicago Fed were all very disappointing," says Riddell, according to CNBC.
 |
| (Getty Images photo) |
"It seems that almost every bit of data about the health of the U.S. economy has disappointed expectations recently."
Unemployment, the bane of the U.S. economy and for politicians at the federal and state levels, continues to plague the economy.
Some 38,000 jobs were created in May, the smallest increase since September and much lower than a revised 177,000 in April, according to figures from ADP Employer Services.
The median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey called for a 175,000 advance for May, which shows hiring remains weak.
And with weak hiring, households spend less and the economy remains in the doldrums and the headlines stay gloomy.
“It is a warning shot across the bow that job growth is also weakening along with the other high frequency numbers,” says Eric Green, chief market economist at TD Securities in New York, according to Bloomberg.
“The weakness reflects a general slowdown and turn in sentiment that set in with the sharp rise in energy prices, disruptions from Japan, and to a lesser extent risk aversion stemming from the Greek fiasco.”
© 2013 Moneynews. All rights reserved.