Daily Data Flow: Stocks Rise on Unemployment Decline; Clothing Left Behind in U.S. Manufacturing Rebound; European Central Bank Cuts Interest Rates

Stocks Rise on Unemployment Decline (Bloomberg)
Stocks rose today, as the European Central Bank cut its key interest rate and American jobless claims unexpectedly fell. “The key thing that you need to make people feel OK is to simply add jobs and ideally lower the unemployment rate,” Ethan Anderson, senior portfolio manager for Rehmann Financial in Grand Rapids, Michigan, said. “It’s looking like the goldilocks type of scenario where the economy grows, but not too fast for the Fed to stop helping, but not too slow to impede earnings growth.”

Clothing Left Behind in U.S. Manufacturing Rebound (CNBC)
While many companies are moving manufacturing back to the United States, clothing retailers tend to be leaving production to much cheaper factories abroad. “We’ve been totally trained to buy it cheaper. It’s a challenge for the designers and the makers out there,” said Erica Wolf, executive director of Save the Garment Center, a campaign aimed at preserving New York City’s midtown Manhattan garment district. Pricing is “always going to be an issue, especially when it’s a mass-market retailer.”

European Central Bank Cuts Interest Rates (Reuters)
Falling in line with expectations, the European Central Bank (ECB) today cut interest rates for the first time in almost a year. The ECB left open possible future cuts to further stimulate the euro zone. “There was a very, very strong prevailing consensus towards an interest rate cut,” said ECB President Mario Draghi of the move.