Economic Research and Data
Features
- Consumer Credit Markets
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- Signs so far suggest that Fed programs designed to revive consumer credit markets are having a positive impact. The market for consumer asset-backed securities (ABS), which effectively shut down in September 2008, has returned to pre-crisis levels after the Fed lent $25 billion to investors against their ABS portfolios. With the Fed’s purchase of mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and Treasury bonds, Treasury yields as well as the spread between Fannie Mae MBS and Treasury securities have declined in recent months.
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- Real GDP: First-Quarter 2009 Final Estimate
- The final estimate for real GDP growth in the first quarter of 2009 came in at −5.5 percent, 0.2 percentage point above the preliminary estimate and 0.6 percentage point higher than the advance estimate. A downward revision to real imports (which adds to real GDP growth) was the largest change from the previous estimate, adding 0.5 percentage point to real GDP growth.
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- The Employment Situation, June 2009
- The decline in nonfarm payroll employment picked up pace again in June, as losses were a greater-than-expected 467,000. Cumulative employment losses in this recession now total 6.5 million, setting total employment back to its level in 2000.Payroll losses in June were broadly spread across goods-producing industries (223,000) and service-providing industries (244,000). The unemployment rate crept up from 9.4 to 9.5 percent.
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