While I touched on unemployment duration at the end of my last blog, this is a very important subject and deserves a bit more elaboration. Quite simply being out of work for three or four weeks is a very different experience with very different economic implications than being out of work for six months to a year or more. The focus on the total number of unemployed obscures that reality. The thing that makes this recession so much different than the ones that have gone before it is how long people are staying out of work once they become unemployed. Yeah if you get laid off for a few weeks, it can be a pain in the butt, but essentially it is just an unplanned vacation. It does not really affect your long term financial solvency, nor do your job skills diminish significantly. After six months, regular state unemployment ...

The October employment report came in weaker than expected as the country lost 190,000 jobs, rather than the 175,000 expectation. It was, however, an improvement over the 219,000 lost in September, but worse than the 154,000 jobs lost in August. Both the September and August job losses were revised sharply lower. As of last month it was thought that we lost 263,000 jobs in September and 201,000 in August. So in that context, missing expectations for October by 15,000 does not seem that bad. Of course, it is bad if you happen to be one of those losing your job. Based on the establishment survey we have now lost 7.3 million jobs since the recession started.

In general though, the pace of job losses has been slowing, especially if you step back and look at the big picture. Over the last three months, the economy has been dropping an average of

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Schwab’s new ETFs solve one critical problem in the ETF market, but they won’t take over the world. At least not for a while.

I’ve been thinking about the Schwab ETF launch all week, trying to figure out if it’s a game-changing event or an overblown bit of marketing. I think it’s a bit of both.

The big news, of course, is that Schwab is entering the ETF market and breaking new ground on fees. It has launched four ETFs that offer the lowest expense ratios in the world: As low as 0.08 percent for U.S. broad market exposure. The new Schwab Total Market ETF (NYSEArca: SCHB) and Schwab Large Cap Equity ETF (NYSEArca: SCHX) are now the lowest-cost mutual funds available to retail investors.

What’s more, Schwab is offering zero commissions for Schwab customers who buy or sell the ETFs.

That’s a big deal. Commissions are a huge hurdle

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For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – November 5, 2009 – Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: Time Warner Inc. (TWX), Fannie (FNM), Freddie (FRE), Citigroup (C) and Bank of America (BAC).

Get the most recent insight from Zacks Equity Research with the free Profit from the Pros newsletter: http://at.zacks.com/?id=5513

Here are highlights from Wednesday’s AnalystBlog:

Time Warner Tops Zacks Consensus

Despite tough macro-economic conditions, Time Warner Inc. (TWX), the global leader in media and entertainment businesses, reported better-than-expected third-quarter 2009 results that topped the Zacks Consensus Estimate.

The quarterly earnings of 61 cents a share beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 52 cents, but

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The Federal Reserve decided to keep the Federal Funds rate unchanged at the meeting it concluded today, as expected. Below is the current Fed Statement along with the one from their September meeting in paragraph-by-paragraph format, with my translation and commentary interspersed. As the graph below shows, the market is expecting the Fed to remain on hold, with Fed Funds between 0 and 25 basis points for an extended period. The graph shows the expected outcomes for the January meeting (before today’s announcement) from the Cleveland Fed. The market set the odds of anything other than standing pat at either today’s meeting or the December meeting effectively at zero. Reading off the chart, it looks like about a 95% probability of no action in January as well. I doubt we will see the Fed raise rates before the third quarter of 2010. The Fed is ...

Dr Stock Pick HOT News & Alerts!

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FREE Daily Stock Alerts From DrStockPick.com

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Friday October 30, 2009

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Too big to fail, is still heavy in the derivative market, and primed for a gigantic collapse.

Congress needs a chimney sweep to clean the soot from the smoke they’ve been blowing. Our do nothing congress; well we can’t really say do nothing, they did bail out the banks, and they have raised more money for themselves this session from Insurance, health care and bank lobbyists than in any other one year period, and the year isn’t even over. Now they are spreading the word, the gospel of Obama, it’s time to

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For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – October 30, 2009 – Zacks Equity Research highlights CarMax (KMX) as the Bull of the Day and Genomic Health Inc. (GHDX) the Bear of the Day. In addition, Zacks Equity Research provides analysis on J.C. Penney (JCP), Macy’s (M) and Bank of America (BAC).

Full analysis of all these stocks is available at http://at.zacks.com/?id=2676

Here is a synopsis of all five stocks:

Bull of the Day:

CarMax (KMX) focuses on penetrating new markets through store openings. The company has kept its inventories closely aligned with sales trends, which has allowed it to optimize gross profit per unit besides offering great value to customers. These have helped the company to maintain a favorable position among its peer group.

CarMax has reported profit in the second quarter, reflecting a significant improvement from the Zacks Consensus Estimate. It

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For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – October 30, 2009 – Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: Bank of America (BAC), Citigroup (C), Motorola Inc. (MOT), China Mobile Ltd. (CHL) and Mylan, Inc. (MYL).

Get the most recent insight from Zacks Equity Research with the free Profit from the Pros newsletter: http://at.zacks.com/?id=5513

Here are highlights from Thursday’s AnalystBlog:

Contributions to GDP Growth

While residential investment is still near a record low share of the overall economy, I have serious questions about the sustainability of the increase. The extension and expansion of the the tax credit by Congress might keep things going for the next few quarters, but

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Almost overlooked with this morning's big news on third quarter GDP was the unemployment claims report, which was a slight positive. Initial claims for unemployment insurance fell by 1,000 to 530,000. For a change, the previous week's numbers were not revised. The four-week moving average fell 6,000 to 526,250 and are now 132,500 below their mid-April peak. This is good news, but it is not good enough -- we really need to see another decline of that magnitude to indicate that the economy is actually adding jobs. Note that even with the decline that we are still above the highest point hit in either of the prior two recessions. Still, you have to crawl before you can walk, and walk before you can run. The graph below (from http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/) shows the history of the four-week moving average. A peak in the moving average historically has been ...

Not all components of GDP are created equal. Some are very big, and others relatively small. Some tend to be very stable over time, and some tend to swing violently from quarter to quarter. The bigger and more volatile they are, the more they will impact the overall growth rate of GDP. Thus looking at just the percentage changes in the components does not tell the full story. Of the 3.5% total growth, how many points were added or subtracted by each part of the economy? The biggest part of the economy is the Consumer, or PCE -- overall it contributed 2.36 of the 3.50 points of total growth. In the second quarter it caused 0.62 of the 0.70 total decline in the 2Q. In the first quarter it actually offset 0.44 points of the 6.40 total decline. In other words, excluding the Consumer the economy would ...