Friday, March 23, 2007

Economy Still Strong

Wall Street is coming off its best week in four years. The Dow closed today up 370 for the week, it's best week since March 2003. The Fed is not increasing interest rates, lessening inflation fears.

Existing home sales were up nearly 4% last month, the largest gain in that sector in nearly three years. All the doom and gloom being reported in the media recently about the crashing home market seems a bit premature. But the median price for a home in the U.S. has dropped from last year, so the market isn't setting records like it has the past few years.

In the jobs market, unemployment nationally dropped in February to 4.5%, while industry added nearly 100,000 new jobs nationwide. Unemployment in Georgia is down sharply. For February it stood at 4.4%, down from 4.7% the previous month. More than 20,000 new payroll jobs were added during the month.

Good numbers. Funny how we don't hear them touted in the press too much.