"Cold and stormy winter weather continued to weigh on the job numbers. Underlying job growth, abstracting from the weather, remains sturdy. Gains are broad based across industries and company sizes, the biggest exception being manufacturing, which shed jobs, but that is not expected to continue."
-Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics
It is hard to say uniquely whether the world's largest economy is strong enough to keep its path to prosperity without the government support, as each month some of GDP components is sending alarming signs. This time it is trade sector, exports in particular.
On Thursday a monthly report from the Bureau of Economic Analysis showed the gap between imported and exported goods and services during December increased 12% to $38.7 billion, rising from November's gap of $34.6 billion. Analysts, however, expected the indicator to hit $36.0 billion. The main reason for such a weak performance was a 1.8% drop in exports, that hit its lowest level in four months. At the same time, imports picked up 0.3%. For the whole 2013 the gap stood at $471.5 billion– the smallest since 2009. Earlier, the government has said that the trade sector was one of the strongest contributors to the 3.2% annual growth during the fourth quarter of 2013. Amid slowing growth in markets like China, concerns about the sustainability in the pace of growth in exports, and December's reading is a reason behind these concerns.
Also Thursday, a regular report from the Labor Department indicated the number of initial jobless claims fell 20,000 to 331,000 last week, beating analysts' projections for a 335,000 figure.
© Dukascopy Bank SA