The unemployment rate has plunged over the past three years to 5.8% from 8.6%, but almost nobody, including the Federal Reserve, thinks the labor market is really that healthy.
The central bank last year spent more than six months signaling its intent to wean the economy off a third round of bond-buying, and the prospect upset markets at just about every turn. Now it's only in the first stage of that process.
But retail sales growth softened to 10 per cent in October, betraying economists’ expectations it would hold steady at 10.7 per cent growth from September.
MasterCard says its index reflects the interconnectedness of major global cities and tracks the ways in which business and leisure jet-setters spend their money.