Jobless claims affected by autos

The Chrysler's slide into and the subsequent layoffs helped push weekly jobless claims up by 32,000 to 637,000, the government said. Initial weekly numbers tend to be volatile, and the general trend remains to the downside, and that's good news, but stabilizing the contracting economy will probably be a slow process.

Wholesale prices mixed

In the meantime, a big jump in food prices translated into a 0.3% rise in the Producer Price Index in April, but stripping out the impact of food and a tiny decline in energy, the core rate was up just 0.1%.

Compared to a year ago, core wholesale prices eased from an increase of 3.8% in March to 3.4%. Falling demand for goods and services are finally starting to take pressure off prices at the wholesale level. We will probably see more declines in the core rate in the coming months as the lingering impact of last year's spike in commodity prices fades.

For other informative articles, please see my home page at Examiner.com.