Quick Overview

• U.S. factory orders rose 0.9% in November. Excluding transportation, orders were down 0.5%.
  

• The Institute of Supply Management's U.S. index of services dropped from 58.9 to 57.1
  

• US jobless claims were up 10,000 to 329,000.
  
  

• The U.S. Department of Energy said that:
  Supplies of crude oil supplies were down 1.3 million barrels to 319.7 million barrels.
  Supplies of unleaded gasoline were up 5.6 million barrels
  Supplies of heating oil were up 1.0 million barrels.
  The U.S. produced 333,000 barrels of ethanol per day in October. The U.S. is expected to produce 4.9 billion gallons of ethanol in 2006, up 25% YoY
  

• Services Index in the U.K. increased from 59.8 to 60.6, the highest reading in almost ten years.