U.s. Economy | featured news

Americans spent more online in November to start the holiday season and began to replace cars and rebuild in the Northeast after Superstorm Sandy.

The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits fell sharply for a fourth straight week, a sign that the job market may be improving.

The central bank said Wednesday that it would maintain short-term interest rates near zero, even after it stops buying bonds, for as long as the unemployment rate stayed above 6.5 percent.

The trade deficit widened in October as exports suffered the biggest drop in nearly four years, indicating slowing global demand was spilling over into the already struggling U.S. economy.

Home prices posted their biggest annual jump in more than six years in October in a sign the housing sector continues to recover, data analysis firm CoreLogic said on Tuesday.

U.S. manufacturing shrank in November to its weakest level since July 2009, one month after the Great Recession ended. Worries about automatic tax increases in the New Year cut demand for factory orders and manufacturing jobs. The Institute for Supply Management said Monday that its index of manufacturing conditions fell to a reading of 49.5. That's down from 51.7 in October.

Just a few months ago, the global economy seemed to be stuck in a precarious state. Huge swaths of the world economy were either slowing down or contracting outright, and it wasn't at all clear whether global economic policymakers would have enough gas left in their stimulus tanks to stop things from spiraling into a bad place.

The bottom is falling out of economic forecasters' expectations for U.S. economic growth in the final months of 2012. And if some of the more bearish estimates prove accurate, it will be the weakest rate of growth since the start of 2011.

Americans cut back on spending last month and saw no growth in their income, partly reflecting disruptions from Superstorm Sandy that could drag on economic growth in the final months of the year.

An index measuring the number of Americans who signed contracts to buy homes in October jumped to nearly its highest level in almost six years.