Investors have plenty of data to chew over while the
Senate takes its sweet time debating the automaker bailout. First the bad news:
- Weekly jobless claims soared by 58,000 to a seasonally adjusted 573,000 versus analyst forecasts of 525,000 in the week ended December 6, 2008. The four-week moving average rose to 540,500, the highest since December 18,1982.
- Both exports and imports declined in October, but the overall deficit rose as the volume of oil imports spiked. The trade deficit widened 1.1% to $57.2 billion versus consensus estimates from economists of a narrowing of the deficit to $54.5 billion.
- Retail sales were down 5.5% in November, and on-line sales were about flat from the previous year.
- Credit card charge-offs are poised to rise significantly from the 6% rate reported in the third quarter. Card industry executives have seen escalating "roll rates", the percentage of cardholders who go from late payments to not making payments at all. Among cardholders who are between 60 and 89 days overdue, about 20% are being charged off as uncollectible, up about a third from last year.
In the deceptively good news department:
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