Don't blame yourself if you missed a few key things this week. Even with one eye on CNBC and the other on your Bloomberg terminal, it's likely you lost interest heading into the holidays.
Attention remained around the nation's capital, largely due to payroll tax cut debates, which went back and forth in the House and Senate throughout the week.
The news fell on an apathetic audience, which has grown increasingly tired of Congressional malaise.
The other big news of the week, AT&T and T-Mobile announced they were officially ending their merger flirtation. The deal, which faced substantial headwinds by U.S. antitrust authorities, resulted in AT&T paying out billions in break-up fees and spectrum rights to the smaller mobile operator.
But that wasn't all that happened.
Good economic data in the U.S., mostly
This week saw reassuring signs that the U.S. is headed towards economic recovery. First, initial claims surprised analysts when it fell by 4,000 to 364,000. Analysts had predicted an increase to 380,000. Equally important, durable goods orders increased by 3.8%, topping expectations and leading markets higher. However, at the same time, third quarter GDP growth in the U.S. was revised lower by two tenths of a percent, to 1.8%.
Existing home sales are revised 14% lower from 2007-10, representing 2 million sales
The National Association of Realtors revised existing home sales 14% lower from 2007-10 after finding it had double counted sales. The drop represents the loss of more than two million sales from an inflated rate, bringing cumulative sales to 17.7 million for the four-year period. The news paints a bleaker portrait of the nation's housing market than was originally thought, and distorts the pace of the economic recovery in the U.S.
British and French economic expansion revised, one up, one down
The two European economies continued to grow, revisions by the Bank of England and French statistics institute Insee show. However, the U.K. saw a bump during its revision. The country saw GDP increase by 0.6% during the third quarter of the year, up from half a percent in earlier estimates. Meanwhile, France was revised downward to 0.3% from 0.4% for the third quarter.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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