By Maxine Shapiro, KERA 90.1 business commentator
Dallas, TX – It's Friday, so "It's Only Money," a review of the big and not so big stories of the week. I'm Maxine Shapiro with KERA Marketplace Midday.
As everybody was hoping, both the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ opened as usual this morning. But as light as a typical Friday is in August, today will be lighter. But there's a lot of good economic news to go along with something as bizarre as the largest blackout in North American history. All the large brokerage houses had their back-up power systems kick in almost right away.
The market had closed up yesterday, and today the Consumer Price Index rose. Right now the economy wants prices to go up. Two months in a row - that's good. It'll begin to squelch the fears of deflation. You can thank higher gasoline prices and services such as health care and education for the increase in that index. If you're sending anyone off to college, you probably could have written the report yourself. States are strapped, and tuitions are going up.
In another report, factories, mines and utilities experienced a little surge of activity. Production rose a half of a percent in July after being flat in June. And if you think a half of a percentage point is nothing, economists were only expecting one-tenth of a percent, making July the largest advance since January. It's all relative.
It's another good news/bad news scenario for the Texas unemployed. Bad news: July's state jobless rate rose to 6.6%, up from 6.5 in June and still above the national rate of 6.2%. The good news: both the Dallas and Fort Worth/Arlington metro areas, which are not seasonally adjusted, saw a decrease. Dallas experienced the smallest amount of jobs lost in July in four years.
So on a quiet Friday afternoon as the east coast recoups and the west coast, what can you say, deals with a very wacky recall election, it's nice that we here in North Texas needn't only, for today, if you want, complain about the heat.
For KERA Marketplace Midday, I'm Maxine Shapiro.
Marketplace Midday Reports air on KERA 90.1 Monday - Friday at 1:04 p.m.
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