Summary for Week ending July 13th

This was a very light week for economic news. The only significant report was the trade deficit for May, and that was at expectations. Import oil prices will fall further in June, so the downtrend in the deficit will probably continue for another month. Interestingly, exports to the euro area were actually up year-over-year for May, but that will probably be short lived.

Weekly initial unemployment claims were down sharply last week, but that was due to onetime factors. Consumer sentiment was down ' and so was small business confidence ' but those are fairly minor reports.

Enjoy the weekend and rest up - next week will be very busy with several key reports and testimony from Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. Luckily there are a few housing reports next week, so all the data will not be grim (still seems weird to be writing about the housing recovery after all those years of being a housing Grizzly bear!).

Here is a summary of last week in graphs:

' Trade Deficit declines in May to $48.7 Billion

Click on graph for larger image.

The trade deficit was at the consensus forecast of $48.7 billion.

Oil averaged $107.91 per barrel in May, down from $109.94 per barrel in April. This will decline further in June. The trade deficit with China increased to $26 billion in May, up from $24.9 billion in May 2011. Once again most of the trade deficit is due to oil and China.

Exports to the euro area were $17 billion in May, up from $16.4 billion in May 2011; so the euro area recession didn't lead to less US exports to the euro area in May.

' BLS: Job Openings increased in May

Job openings increased in May to 3.642 million, up from 3.447 million in April. The number of job openings (yellow) has generally been trending up, and openings are up about 18% year-over-year compared to May 2011.

Quits increased slightly in May, and quits are now up about 6% year-over-year. These are voluntary separations and more quits might indicate some improvement in the labor market. (see light blue columns at bottom of graph for trend for "quits").