Economic Data

Last week we had some economic data that moved the markets: America's unemployment rate fell to 9% in January from 9.4% in December. The number of unemployed people fell by about 600,000 to 13.9 million, while the size of the labor force did not change. In Canada, employment rose by 69,00 in January, but the number of those searching for work also increased. The unemployment rate went up by a fifth of a percentage point to 7.8%.

The news to today is China's reported CPI was weaker than expected; however, the weighting of the their CPI index had been tweaked with housing being raised and food being reduced. If you listened to my story yesterday, food prices are on the rise. Bottom line, these figures have done little to dissipate continued inflation concerns, so further rate increases in the near term shouldn't come as a big surprise. Last week, China's central bank raised interest rates by 25 basis points for the third time in less than four months.

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