Economic News - October 3, 2008

Monster Employment Index - September 2008

• Index: 160


• Monthly Change: Up 1


• Year-to-year Change: Down 26 Points

Money Supply - October 2, 2008

• M1 Seasonally Adjusted Prior Month: $1390.7 billion


• M1 4-Week Average: $1389.4 billion


• M1 Annual Change (Unadjusted): $20.8 billion

Jobless Claims - October 2, 2008

• Initial Claims: 497,000


• Change from Last Week: Up 1,000

Factory Orders - August 2008

• New Orders: $444.4 billion


• Monthly Change: Down 4.0%

Freddie Mac reports rates little changed

The Freddie Mac numbers showed a slight rise in long term rates and a
slight drop in 5-year and 1-year ARMS, the opposite of the Mortgage Bankers Association report yesterday
which showed a slight drop in long term rates and a fairly big hike in
1-year ARM rates. This may reflect the increasing difficulty in placing
anything but conforming Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae mortgages in the current
market.

Fresh Data Show Economy Is Worsening

The weekly number of workers filing new claims for
unemployment hit a fresh seven-year high on layoffs and continued
hurricane effects. Meanwhile, factory orders plunged 4.0% in August.

Fed Window Borrowing Surges

Direct borrowing from the Fed soared over the past week, topping $400 billion
as credit markets remained frozen and lawmakers debated a $700 billion
plan to rescue the financial sector.

Trichet Poised for `Volte Face' Cut on Interest Rates as Summit Approaches Jean-Claude Trichet is poised to
execute his first interest-rate cut since becoming European
Central Bank president almost five years ago.

U.S. Employers Probably Cut Jobs for Ninth Month as Credit Crunch Deepened The U.S. probably lost jobs in
September for a ninth month as the credit crisis deepened the
economic slump, economists said before a government report today.

Fed Bank Chiefs Bullard, Hoenig Signal They're Unready to Back a Rate Cut Two Federal Reserve district bank
presidents signaled they're not prepared to back an interest-
rate cut even after the biggest disruption to the U.S. financial
industry in seven decades.

France Probably Fell Into Recession as Consumers Cut Spending, Insee Says France's economy, the second largest
of the 15 countries sharing the euro, slipped into recession for
the first time in more than 15 years in the third quarter,
Insee, the national statistics office, forecast.

Canada is not in U.S. trouble, Harper tells debate

OTTAWA, Oct 2 (Reuters) - Prime Minister Stephen Harper
admitted on Thursday to concern about global economic trouble
but said in Canada's final election debate that his country was
on a far better economic footing than the United States.

Analyst says recession could drag oil below $50