Conference Board

This has the feel of a big week. The headlines that clicked by on Bloomberg today captured a different zeitgeist than last week, a sense of a logjam of rhetoric and disconnection break open.

Commentators will have a field day, but it’s worth taking a look at how the rhythm of the news shifted.

Here’s the summary of the day.

• The activity that drives jobs and the economy — manufacturing and services — is gearing up, albeit slowly.
• The employment market continues to stabilize.
• Obama, faced with a strategic defeat in Massachusetts, quickly tunes into popular opinion, backs off health care and goes straight after the Wall Street titans.
• Consumers are beginning to spend more, and the biggest Wall Street giant of them all bows to popular opinion to cut back its bonus pool, after using a Federal subsidy to post its highest earning year ever.
• In the midst of this sudden shift in momentum, the market slides, unclear what the implications are and in a hurry to hedge its downside risk.

Here’s the highlights from Bloomberg:

U.S. Economy: Leading Index Rises More Than Forecast

The New York-based Conference Board’s gauge of the outlook for the next three to six months climbed 1.1 percent, the most in three months, after increasing 1 percent in November. The gain exceeded the median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey for a 0.7 percent rise. Another report showed Philadelphia-area manufacturing expanded in January for a fifth straight month.

Factories in Philadelphia Fed Region Grew in January

Increases in exports and business investment, combined with a need to stabilize inventories, may promote further gains in manufacturing in early 2010. The report corroborates figures issued by the Fed Bank of New York last week that showed factories in that region accelerated, indicating the rebound is broad-based.

Jobless Claims in U.S. Unexpectedly Rise on Backlog

The jump was due to an “administrative” accumulation from late December and early January holidays, and did not reflect “economic” reasons, a Labor Department spokesman said.

Obama, Democrats Signal Willingness to Scale Back Health Bill

President Barack Obama and House Democratic lawmakers signaled a willingness to scale back legislation overhauling the U.S. health-care system after the party suffered a defeat in a key Senate race.

Obama Calls for Limiting Size, Risk-Taking of Banks

President Barack Obama, tapping into voter anger over bank bailouts, called for limiting the size and trading activities of financial institutions as a way to reduce risk-taking and prevent another financial crisis.

American Express Profit Surges as Spending Rebounds

“We still face the challenge of high unemployment levels, depressed real estate values, and shrunken household balance sheets, but the overall economy and our company are in stronger shape than they were a year ago,” Chenault said in the statement. “While the economic recovery now under way is likely to be modest, we expect it to continue and have begun to shift our focus to growing American Express for the longer term.”

Goldman Sachs Posts Record Profit on Bonus Pool Cuts

“The big story is the compensation,” said Keith Davis, an analyst at Farr, Miller & Washington LLC in Washington, which manages about $650 million, including Goldman Sachs shares. “They got the message that politically they can’t be paying out close to 50 percent of revenues anymore, at least for the time being. Obviously, that’s the primary reason for the beat.”

Stocks, Commodities Slide, Treasuries Gain on Obama Bank Reform

“Financials are selling off and dragging down the market,” said Michael Nasto, the senior trader at U.S. Global Investors Inc., which manages about $2.5 billion in San Antonio. “There’s concern about an overhaul of financial services companies, with increased regulation, hurting the bottom-line of banks.”

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