Stock Market News & Stocks to Watch from StraightStocks » Department of Labor

11-18-09 Daily Small Cap Market News and Stock Highlights from SmallCapVoice.com

Stuart T. Smith — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:09:46 +0000

Stocks are lower as an unexpected drop in home construction raised concerns about the pace of the economy’s recovery The Commerce Department said construction of homes and apartments fell 10.6 percent in October to an annual rate of 529,000, well below the pace of 600,000 that economists polled by Thomson Reuters had predicted. Building permits, a key [...]

Initial Jobless Claims Continue Decline, 502K Figure Beats Expectations

QualityStocks — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:36:57 +0000

Labor Department statistics released today showed a marked decline in initial jobless claims, extending a run of such declines. Initial claims are an important barometer for layoffs and hiring. A 12K decline to 502,000 from the previous week, and a drop in the 4-week average to 519,750, is a strong indicator of improvement. The [...]

11-4-09 Daily Small Cap Market News and Stock Highlights from SmallCapVoice.com

Stuart T. Smith — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:10:19 +0000

Stocks are higher on positive employment data Encouraging news on the labor market buoyed stocks in early trading Wednesday as investors waited for the Federal Reserve to weigh in on the economy. The ADP National Employment Report said 203,000 private sector jobs were lost in October, down from the 227,000 jobs lost in September. It was the [...]

US Labor Market Shows Continuing Signs of Improvement

QualityStocks — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:28:24 +0000

A continued decline in initial claims for unemployment resulted in roughly 10,000 fewer than last week’s upwardly revised total of 524,000. For the fifth time now in six weeks, this figure has declined, beating the Thomson Reuters forecast by 2%, with the four-week average falling six times in a row to 531,500. The initial claims [...]

Stock Market News for October 9, 2009 – Market News

Zacks Market Commentaries — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 14:07:27 +0000

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 61 points on Thursday as traders reacted to news that retailers last month had their first sales gain in more than a year. A closely watched gauge of sales at major retailers rose 0.1% in September. Still, most stores posted sales declines -- though smaller than in recent months -- even as their figures are compared with last September when business plummeted as the financial meltdown ballooned. While still tepid, it was the first monthly rise in the International Council of Shopping Centers-Goldman Sachs tally since July 2008.

On Thursday, the European Central Bank and Bank of England left interest rates unchanged. Sentiment also received a boost from domestic corporate borrowing, which rose for the eight straight week.

The growing optimism surrounding consumer spending, which is crucial for an economic recovery, followed late Wednesday's good results from Alcoa. The company surprised investors with its first profit in nine months, which the aluminum company attributed to cost-cutting and rising sales to automakers. Analysts believe that it will take more than just cost cutting to impress investors this earnings season.

Meanwhile, a better reading on the job market also fueled investors' optimism. The Labor Department reported that new claims for jobless benefits fell to 521,000 last week from 554,000 during the previous week. Claims came to the lowest level since early January.

The Dow rose 61.29, or 0.6%, to 9,786.87. The index ended off its highest level after demand at a government auction of 30-year bonds fell short of expectations. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 7.90, or 0.8%, to 1,065.48, while the Nasdaq composite index rose 13.60, or 0.6%, to 2,123.93. About three stocks rose for every one that fell on the New York Stock Exchange, where consolidated volume came to 5.2 billion shares, compared with 5.1 billion on Wednesday. The market's measure of investor worries, the CBOE Vix, dropped 2% to 24.18.

The Dollar Index, which tracks the US currency against a basket of currencies, dropped 0.7% to 75.968 after reaching 75.767, its weakest level since August 2008. This morning, however, the dollar rebounded from its lows after Fed Chairman Bernanke seemed to signal a shortening of its accommodative policy timeline. Economists currently do not expect policy shifts before mid-2010; however, Bernanke advised the Fed is ready to tighten monetary policy once the economy improves. At the same time, he cautioned that "accommodative policy will likely be warranted for an extended period." Gold closed at a record $1,056.30 an ounce and hit an electronic trading high of $1,062.70 during the day.

A weak dollar, along with rising oil and gold prices, gave a boost to dollar-sensitive multi-nationals, such as Dow components 3M (MMM), GE (GE) and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ). The rise in oil prices lifted Chevron (CVX), Exxon Mobil (XOM) and other commodity names.

The House is considering an extension of the first-time homebuyers' tax credit, slated for November expiration. Pulte Homes (NYSE:PHM) shares climbed 4.3%; DR Horton (NYSE:DHI) increased 8.0%; and Lennar (NYSE:LEN) rose 9.1%.

Among retailers, Macy's (NYSE:M) increased 5.1% after reporting a 2.3% sales drop, half the projected decline. Abercrombie & Fitch (NYSE:ANF) rose 5.2% after its sales decline proved less than feared. Luxury retailer Saks (NYSE:SKS) fell 4.5% following its reported 11.6% decline in comparable sales.

Zacks Investment Research

Initial Jobless Claims Decline to January Levels

QualityStocks — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 17:51:48 +0000

A Labor Department report issued Thursday Oct. 8 shows initial claims for unemployment fell 33,000 from the prior week’s revised total to 521,000, the lowest level since the beginning of 2009. This figure was 19k less than the Thomson Reuters survey, giving some cause for hope amid a generally depressed economic outlook. With the four-week [...]

Oil Prices Fall on News of Rising Unemployment

QualityStocks — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 19:33:16 +0000

With unemployment at a 26-year high of 9.8 percent, employers trumped expectations, cutting a whopping 263,000 jobs in September. Labor Department figures show a loss of 7.2 million jobs since December 2007, bringing the total number of unemployed Americans to an astounding 15.1 million. Oil prices fell October 2 in response to a flagging job market, [...]

ADP: 254,000 Private-Sector Jobs Lost – Analyst Blog

Dirk Van Dijk — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 18:45:23 +0000

Automatic Data Processing (ADP) is by far the largest processor of private sector paychecks in the country. This gives the company good insight into the number of jobs gained or lost by the economy. It is one of the key precursors to the big employment report due out on Friday morning.

ADP sees a decline of 254,000 jobs in September. While that is the smallest decline in their survey since July of 2008, it was far more than the 200,000 consensus expectation. In August, according to the ADP numbers the economy lost 277,000, and that number was revised down from 298,000.

In recent months however, the ADP report has been far more bearish than the report from the Labor Department has turned out to be. For example, according to the Labor Department the economy lost only 216,000 jobs in August. The consensus expectations are for the Labor Department to report a decline of 180,000 jobs in September.

There is actually a good chance that the number will come in better than that, but due entirely to some technical seasonal adjustment issues. Normally, the Labor Department adjusts the numbers to reflect all the college kids going back to school in September and thus quitting their summer jobs. This year there just were not that many summer jobs, so the adjustment could end up overstating things.

The losses in jobs according to ADP were spread out across the size spectrum, with small businesses shedding 100,000 jobs, medium sized (50 to 499 employees) dropping 93,000 and big businesses dropping 61,000. On a percentage basis however, the decline was actually larger for big businesses, since large firms only account for 16.5% of all private sector employment. Small business, on the other hand, makes up 44.4% of private sector jobs.

Goods-producing industries continue to be hit hard according to ADP, losing 151,000 jobs on the month -- that is 0.8% of all goods-producing jobs lost in a single month. Service jobs are also falling, but at a slower rate, both absolutely and as a percentage, falling by 103,000, or by 0.1%.

Manufacturing was the key reason in the decline of goods-producing jobs, falling by 74,000, or 0.8%. Since April, manufacturing employment is down by 4.3%.

Jobs are one of the last things to turn around in the economy. We are still a ways away from actually adding jobs, but the reduction in the rate of decline in payrolls is a good first step. It is a long journey, though, since the population is growing, and we should be adding about 150,000 jobs just to keep up with population growth.

We have, using the government numbers, lost about 7 million jobs so far in this recession. If we were to get to the point where we were adding 150,000 jobs a month, it would take us almost four years for payrolls to climb back to where they were in November of 2007. That would not even put a dent in what we need to keep up with population growth.

From August of 2003 through December of 2007, the part of the last expansion where the economy was adding jobs, we only averaged growth of 142,500 private sector jobs a month, so a pace of 150,000 would actually be better than the "good part" of the last administration. A repeat of that pathetic performance will not be good enough.

After the last two recessions, we went through long periods of jobless recoveries where the economy was growing but payrolls were not. That seems likely to happen again, and there is a very real possibility that we will not see a new high in total employment until 2015 or 2016.

The big question then is, what happens to all those people who are left unemployed, more or less permanently? Do they starve, or turn to crime? Or will there be some sort of safety net for them?
Read the full analyst report on "ADP"
Zacks Investment Research

Market Braces for Tidal Wave of Economic Data

QualityStocks — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 18:10:36 +0000

Investors are approaching the week with “itchy trigger fingers”, according to chief investment strategist for Northern Trust, Jim McDonald. After last week’s housing and manufacturing data checked the market’s 7-month advance, the pits are wary going into a week set to be dominated by more reports on leading economic indicators. The Labor Department’s monthly report [...]

Market Wanes on News of Falling Home Sales and Oil Prices

QualityStocks — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 20:53:55 +0000

The National Association of Realtors released data indicating a 2.7 percent decline in home sales for August. This was a surprise to many investors after a 4 month upturn in home sales figures and a 7.2 percent increase in July. These surprising results heighten the anticipation of a coming end to the $8,000 tax credit [...]

Catching Up With Richard Duncan…

Contrarian Profits — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 19:03:06 +0000

pNon-dollar currencies give back very little#8230;The Unemployed are remaining unemployed#8230; FOMC puts away the board games today#8230; China invokes a #8220;Public Morals#8221; defense#8230; And Now#8230; Today#8217;s Pfennig!/p pGood day#8230; And a Wonderful Wednesday to you! Well, the Fed Head put away the board games today, and make an announcement this afternoon#8230; Yawn#8230; Norway#8217;s Norges Bank will also make an announcement with theirs coming this morning. I still contend that the Norges Bank will keep rates unchanged and give a hint as to when their rate hike cycle will begin. If that were to happen as I think, then it would be very bullish for the krone#8230;/p pWell! The non-dollar currencies held ground gained yesterday, giving back, oh-so-little to the profit taking. The#8230;/p

Finance Jobs Going Where the Growth Is – Asia

Jason Simpkins — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 17:07:51 +0000

China is Investing Billions in Renewable Energy One firm has already built China’s largest wind turbine manufacturing factory. And it’s working with the Chinese Science Academy to develop new wind, solar, and geothermal technologies… for which it will own 70% of the rights. But this company’s business reaches far beyond the Chinese border, with operations [...]

Oil Steady at $68

Contrarian Profits — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 16:40:29 +0000

pOil prices steadied on Thursday as economic optimism from data showing that the U.S. service sector and retail sales improved was tempered by disappointing news from the labor market./p pU.S. crude prices for October delivery rose 2 cents to $68.07 a barrel by 11:44 a.m. EDT (1644 GMT), after earlier reaching a high of $69.40 on U.S. stock gains and a weaker dollar./p pLondon Brent crude was down 32 cents at $67.34 a barrel./p p#8220;Right now, there#8217;s not a whole lot of momentum here in either direction. I think the trend for the week, which has been down, is still in force,#8221; said Tom Bentz, senior commodity analyst, BNP Paribas commodity Futures Inc in New York./p p#8220;Everything seemed to kind of slip right after the jobs#8230;/p

Dr Stock pick End of Day August 20,2009 CRWE , CVAT , VSYM , CSRH , USPS , HRAL ,AQNM , PWRM

Dr. Stock Pick — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 21:42:42 +0000

Seasoned EquityTrader August 20 , 2009 Dow 9,350 +70.89 +.76% Nasdaq1989.22 +19.98 +1.01% S&P 5001007.37 +10.91 +1.09% Financial News: More signs that the economy is creeping toward recovery encouraged investors to move further into stocks — but at a cautious pace.Stocks rose moderately Thursday in very light volume. There were no dramatic economic reports, but a smattering of more upbeat data convinced investors to [...]

Wal-Mart Sales Decline as Consumers Trim Retail Spending

Money Morning — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 19:20:31 +0000

Why Is Beijing Investing $200 Billion in One Company? The answer is simple. This rail company hauls 25% of the world’s freight – but it only has 6% of the world’s track. Right now, freight supply is 65% shy of demand. Sales for this company have grown on average 47% over the last five year. [...]

Budget Insanity, FOMC Down-Low, Oil Sands Investing and More!

Contrarian Profits — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 16:00:10 +0000

pGovernment budget hits all-time insanity… record monthly, year-to-date deficits#8230; “Cash for clunkers” helps GM, but not economy… July retail sales stage surprise fall#8230; Fed plans exit strategy, ends bond buys… why the FOMC is still not helping you#8230; Byron King’s crude reality: How Canada could be the next Saudi Arabia#8230;/p p It’s official: strongOur government ran a record $180.7 billion over budget in July,/strong the Treasury Department said today. That’s just a bit over Wall Street expectations and just under the Congressional Budget Office estimate we reported a href="http://www.agorafinancial.com/5min/the-debt-ceiling-dividend-plays-a-currency-sea-change-and-more/"Monday/a. Thus the government tab so far this fiscal year is a record $1.27 trillion, not the record $1.3 trillion the CBO guessed earlier this week. Phew… what a relief./p pA few more scary details:/p ul liThe budget deficit is still on track to#8230;/li/ul

Stock Market News for August 10, 2009 – Market News

Zacks Market Commentaries — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 14:20:41 +0000

U.S. stocks rose Friday to their highest level in nine months as a better-than-expected July jobs report added to recovery hopes and indicated the recession is nearing an end. Nervous investors who had locked in profits in earlier sessions fearing the employment report would disappoint found a new reason to rejoice and sent stocks sharply higher.

The broad-based S&P 500 index rose 13 points, or 1.3%, to its highest point since October 6 as the Labor Department noted nonfarm payrolls tapered off in July. Results from a separate survey showed an unexpected decline in unemployment rate, indicating an improving employment picture. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 114 points to 9,370.07 and the technology-laden NASDAQ rose 27 points, or 1.4%, to 2,000.25. Volume remained moderate as 1.5 billion shares exchanged hands on the New York Stock Exchange where winners topped losers three to one.

The S&P 500 is now up 49.4% from its twelve-year lows hit on March 9. Last week, the DJIA advanced 2.2%, for a 6.8% year-to-date climb; the NASDAQ tacked on 1.1% for a 26.8% gain on the year; the S&P500 rose 2.3%, now standing on a 11.9% increase in 2009.

Better-than-expected earnings reports from companies, manufacturing data and growing signs that the economy is on a path to recovery have boosted sentiments on the Street and indicated that a recovery might indeed be underway. Then, Friday’s employment numbers positively surprised and indicated that the most vexing issue of the economy, unemployment, is showing some sings of moderation. As President Obama happily noted after release of Friday's employment numbers, "the worst may be behind us."

With $95 billion in Treasury auction slated for this week and investors turning to equities, US Treasuries lost their safety appeal. Treasuries dropped to their lowest levels since October as prices marked their sharpest weekly fall in six years. After a broad decline on the week, the US dollar jumped 95 cents to close at $79.105 against a basket of currencies, following bullish economic news on the employment front. In another development, the Senate provided a $2 billion extension of the "cash-for-clunkers" program.

The coming week will provide more data on the consumer, with key retailers' results and July monthly sales figures. Among those firms, Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT) will report results. The major discounter had decided to eliminate release of monthly comparable sales numbers, so its numbers will be closely watched. Also on the docket are: Abercrombie & Fitch (NYSE:ANF), JC Penney (NYSE:JCP), Kohl's (NYSE:KSS), Macy's (NYSE:M), Nordstrom (NYSE:JWN), and Urban Outfitters (NASDAQ:URBN).

Zacks Investment Research

Stock Market News for August 7, 2009 – Market News

Zacks Market Commentaries — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 14:31:17 +0000

U.S. stocks suffered moderate declines Thursday as worries about a key report on U.S. job losses weighed on sentiments. Traders remained hesitant and cut positions as a number of disappointing July same store sales reports added to waning optimism that the recession is losing its grip. Healthcare issues fell after JP Morgan downgraded the sector to underweight. A $2 billion extension of the successful clunkers program failed to lift moods on the Street either.

The Dow Jones industrial average lost 25 points, or 0.3% and the broader S&P 500 index fell 5 points, or 0.6%. The technology-focused Nasdaq retreated 20 points, or 1%.

This morning, the July jobs report surprised as the Labor Department reported that U.S. employers shed fewer jobs in July. That unemployment rate dipped to 9.4% against expectations of a 9.6% fall helped calm shaky nerves and pushed stock futures sharply higher. The Labor Department noted that US employers cut 247,000 jobs in July, the fewest in a year. Dow Jones industrial average futures are up 61, or 0.7%, at 9,290. Standard & Poor's 500 index futures are up 8.30, or 0.8%, at 1,003.20, while Nasdaq 100 index futures are up 16.50, or 1%, at 1,617.75.

Yesterday, poor July retail sales data and apprehension about the monthly non-farm payrolls report sent S&P500 shares lower and the index retreated back under the 1000 level. Only utilities, up 0.1%, and industrials, up 0.04%, showed some strength as even financials, a major support sector over the past five sessions, headed lower. Health care sector and telecommunications issues declined 1.1%, with oil and gas, consumer goods, and technology issues easing 0.9%. Crude prices eased three cents to $71.94, following the downward drift of equity prices and US dollar gains.

Among the DJIA components, Procter & Gamble (NYSE:PG), off 4.5%, continued to decline as investor remain concerned over its sales outlook. Copper prices declined sending Alcoa (NYSE:AA) down 3.6%. Cisco's (NASDAQ:CSCO) cautious outlook weighed on technology stocks as Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ) eased 2.4%. JP Morgan (NYSE:JPM) shares dropped 2.5%, despite news Deutsche Bank (NYSE:DB) had initiated its coverage with a "buy" rating. American Express (NYSE:AXP) rose 3.1% after Citigroup (NYSE:C) upgraded the stock on news of a slowing pace of credit loans losses.

In a Thursday CNBC interview, Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) strategist Cohen announced, "We do think the new bull market has begun," setting sights on a rise in the S&P500 of as much as 10% by year-end.

Zacks Investment Research

Dr Stock Pick End of Day August 6, 2009 AQNM, CVAT, CRWE, USPS, CSRH, PWRM

Dr. Stock Pick — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 20:57:43 +0000

Seasoned EquityTrader August 6 , 2009 Dow 9,256,26 -24.71 -0.27 % Nasdaq 1,973.16 -5.64 -0.56% S&P 500 997.08 -5.64 -0.56% Financial News: Investors shuffled through the final day of trading before the government’s July employment report. The Dow Jones industrial average lost 25 points and other major indexes suffered moderate losses Thursday as worries about the Labor Department’s report dominated trading for a third [...]

Stock Market News for August 5, 2009 – Market News

Zacks Market Commentaries — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 14:36:15 +0000

U.S. stocks advanced but the gains were subdued as investors awaited the Labor Department’s employment report on Friday. Trading was choppy throughout the session and stocks swung between gains and losses as traders held their positions. Pending home sales rose for the fifth moth in a row, signaling some stabilization on the housing front and the overall economy.

The Dow Jones industrial average added 33 points, or 0.4%, to jump to its highest level since November 4; the S&P 500 index gained 3 points, or 0.3% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite edged up 3 points, or 0.1%, ending at its highest point since October 1. Both the NASDAQ and S&P500 are holding above key technical levels, maintaining their perches above 2000 and 1000, respectively.

Shares in Caterpillar Inc (NYSE:CAT) surged 6.1% after the firm noted at an analysts’ forum that cost cutting efforts and other initiatives will help it reap in profits in the coming years. The company's CEO noted hopes of annual earnings of $8 to $10 on sales approaching $60 billion by 2012, should a "normal" global recovery occur. Also helping the late-afternoon gains were financials, with Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) up 2.1%, Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) up 2.9%, and Citigroup (NYSE:C) up 2.2%. The sector led the gainers on the S&P 500 index with a 2.1% advance.

On the S&P 500, six industry groups advanced, led by a 2.1% rise in financial shares, followed by a 0.5% rise in industrials, 0.4% in consumer goods, 0.1% in basic materials and consumer services. On the downside, utilities, impacted by worse-than-expected results and downside guidance from PPL (NYSE:PPL), sank 1%, followed by drops in oil and gas (-0.3%), tech (-0.1%), and telecommunications issues, off marginally.

The recent optimism on the Street has sent S&P on a scintillating run of 49% from the March 9 lows. That, however, has raised questions about the market's ability to sustain its recent gains. Nevertheless, the optimism in not entirely baseless as evidenced by yesterday’s pending home sales, which rose 3.6% in June. And while personal income recorded its largest drop in 4½ years, off 1.3% in June, the pace of consumer spending picked up slightly more than expected with a 0.4% increase on higher spending for nondurable goods.

Zacks Investment Research

Stock Market News for July 31, 2009 – Market News

Zacks Market Commentaries — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 14:41:18 +0000

A smaller-than-expected rise in weekly jobless claims and upbeat earnings from companies helped stock markets extend their impressive run this week as investors found new reason to put money into stocks. All stock indexes managed bigger gains as the session progressed but lost some momentum towards the end.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 83 points, or 0.9% and the broader S&P 500 index added 11 points, or 1.2%, to 986.75, its highest close since November 4. The tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 16 points, or 0.8%, to close at its highest level since October 1.

The much-awaited GDP report this morning demonstrated a smaller-than-expected 1% contraction, signaling the recession is losing force. Expectations were for a 1.5% drop.

Yesterday, GE (NYSE:GE) led the Dow Jones industrial average higher after the conglomerate was upgraded to “buy" from “neutral" by Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS). The analysts at Goldman Sachs said chances of GE severing its GE Capital business appeared to be less likely. Shares in GE surged 6.9% helping the Dow average end at its highest level since November 4. The index is up 40% since it hit a 12-year low on March 9.

Meanwhile, the Labor Department’s weekly jobless data helped calm shaky nerves as it signaled a stabilizing economy and an improving employment scenario. Upbeat sentiments on the Street helped all ten industry groups in the S&P 500 register gains. Among the S&P500 industry sectors, gains were led by basic materials (+3.2%), financials (+2.3%) and industrials (+1.9%). The index is up about 12% from July 10, as significant beats from companies like Intel (NASDAQ:INTC), Caterpillar (NYSE:CAT), Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS), Eli Lilly (NYSE:LLY) have pushed the index closer to the 1,000 level.

Motorola (NYSE:MOT) jumped 9.4% to $7.19 after reporting a loss of 1 cent a share that was better than expected. MasterCard (NYSE:MA) rose 3% to $194.11 after higher fee income drove profit to $2.68 a share that was above estimates. Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) gained 0.6% to $67.21 after its earnings came ahead of projections.

Among commodity-related issues and industrial shares, Alcoa (NYSE:AA) rose 4.1%, DuPont (NYSE:DD) gained 4.3%, and Caterpillar (NYSE:CAT) rose 3.8%. Among the DJIA components, McDonald's (NYSE:MCD) fell 1.5% after Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) cut its ratings on the firm to "equalweight" from "overweight." Travelers (NYSE:TRV) shares fell 1.6% on its earnings miss despite a raised full-year outlook. ExxonMobil (NYSE:XOM) shares lost 1.0% after the company reported its smallest profits in six years.

Key companies reporting their earnings today include American Electric Power (NYSE:AEP), Chevron (NYSE:CVX) Constellation Energy (NYSE:CEG), Dominion Resources (NYSE:D), and Weyerhaeuser (NYSE:WY).

Zacks Investment Research

Dollar Continues to Slide

Contrarian Profits — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 13:30:39 +0000

pDollar continues to slide#8230; US GDP contracts but not as fast#8230; Nordic currencies outperform#8230; Japanese yen continues to fall#8230; And Now#8230; Today#8217;s Pfennig!br / Good day#8230; The last day of July is upon us. Time just seems to keep moving faster as it seems summer just got started. The fall of the dollar also accelerated yesterday as investors moved back out of the #8217;safe haven#8217; of US$ and continued to shop for more yield. The greenback tried to stage a bit of a rally in early European trading, but has fallen back off again as I sit down to write the Pfennig./p pI got a call from a Reuters reporter yesterday mid morning to ask why the dollar was rallying at the same time stocks were moving#8230;/p

The Real Economy is Getting Worse

Contrarian Profits — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 19:30:49 +0000

pThe jobless rate hit a 26-year high of 9.5% last month – and many economists are betting for the jobless rate to hit 10%./p p“Of the June total,” reports the Labor Department, “1,235 mass layoffs were reported in the manufacturing sector.”/p p“All the indicators in the real economy,” said a href="http://www.contrarianprofits.com/articles/author/bill-bonner/" class="alinks_links"Bill Bonner/a in his final speech at the Agora Financial Investment Symposium in Vancouver, “are actually getting worse.”/p pAnd is it any surprise? What exactly does America make anymore? We have been a nation of consumers for the past decade, spending and borrowing to buy the gee-gaws and gadgets that our friends in the Far East have been so busy producing. But now, consumers are saving…they aren’t buying flat-screen televisions…or new cars…or much of anything#8230;/p

China Booms, The CIT Crisis, A Bizarre Commodity Worth Stockpiling, Vancouver and More!

Contrarian Profits — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 13:00:48 +0000

div class="contenttitle" p China has once again snatched the leadoff spot in our daily lineup. And once again, they’ve knocked the cover off the ball./p/div pstrongThe Chinese economy expanded at a dizzying 7.9% in the second quarter/strong, their government announced yesterday. That far exceeds analyst expectations and China’s still-impressive 6.1% first-quarter growth. Conveniently, the second-quarter jump #8212; plus revised GDP growth expectations of 8% in the third quarter and 9% in the fourth #8212; puts China perfectly on track for the 8% annual growth they promised earlier this year./p pLooking through the fine print of today’s data… oy, these are some la-la land numbers:/p ul liNew lending in the first half soared 201% compared to the year before/li liFirst-half property sales up 53% per annum/li liChinese home prices are#8230;/li/ul

Risk Aversion Returns

Contrarian Profits — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 13:30:06 +0000

pRisk Aversion returns#8230; Money Multiplier dampens stimulus effects#8230; TIC flows show concern of foreign investors#8230; China back on growth track#8230; And Now#8230; Today#8217;s Pfennig!/p pGood day#8230; Chuck got an early start on a two week hiatus from the desk, so you will be stuck with me writing the Pfennig for the next two weeks. But don#8217;t worry, you will still get a small dose of Chuck over the next week as he typically emails me his thoughts while on the road (I call it Pfennig Pfodder). Risk aversion dominated the currency markets overnight, as terrorists set off two separate explosions in Jakarta and investors moved money back into the #8217;safe havens#8217; of the US$ and Japanese yen./p pChuck wrote about this move yesterday, believing the bad#8230;/p

Oil Slips as Demand Worries Linger

Contrarian Profits — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 15:00:08 +0000

pOil prices slipped on Thursday as concerns about weak global fuel demand outweighed strong economic growth in China and better-than-expected U.S. banking results./p pU.S. crude oil for August delivery fell 49 cents to $61.05 a barrel by 1745 GMT after hitting a low of $60.29 a barrel. London Brent crude slipped 43 cents to $62.66 ahead of the August contract#8217;s expiry later on Thursday./p pThe losses come amid lingering worries about global energy demand, contracting for the first time in a quarter century under the weight of the economic recession./p pThe global slowdown has cut world oil demand by as much as 2.5 million barrels per day, according to the International Energy Agency./p pJim Ritterbusch, president at Ritterbusch #38; Associates in Galena, Illinois, added that recent#8230;/p

Crude Oil Gains

Doug Casey — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 19:30:54 +0000

pIn the energy market, crude oil for August delivery rose 27 cents from Wednesday to close at $60.41/barrel. August reformulated gasoline gained more than 3 cents to finish at $1.6638/gallon. /p pAs evidence of how screwed up things are out there, crude apparently got a boost from the Labor Department’s report mentioned above. So more than half a million new people filing for unemployment in a week is good news?/p p#8220;The jobs data and the dollar are helping oil today,#8221; said Phil Flynn, vice president at futures trading and research firm PFG BEST Research. #8220;But weak demand concerns are rising.#8221;/p pMeanwhile, crude inventories at Cushing, Okla. – the delivery point for crude futures traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange – jumped to#8230;/p

Dollar Falls

Doug Casey — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 18:33:59 +0000

p class="maintextDRP"In the currency market, the dollar fell against the euro. Late Thursday, the euro was trading at $1.4036 vs. $1.3882 on Wednesday. br / #8220;The correlation between risk aversion and currencies has decreased over recent weeks. We continue to expect risk aversion to play an important role in driving currencies, but it will not be as dominant a factor as it has been over the past year,#8221; said analysts at Calyon./p p#8220;Our expectations of improved risk appetite over the coming months point to further U.S. dollar weakness,#8221; they added in a research note./p pOn the economic front, it’s still looking pretty gloomy out there./p pWhile first-time claims for state unemployment benefits fell in the latest weekly data (after seasonal adjustment) continuing claims hit a record#8230;/p

Frightened Investors Move Back into US Treasuries

Contrarian Profits — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 15:30:59 +0000

pJobs data skewed by #8217;seasonal adjustments#8217;#8230; BOE surprises the market#8230; Oil falls below $60#8230; China#8217;s reserves continue to grow#8230; And Now#8230; Today#8217;s Pfennig!/p pGood day#8230;Chuck has a bevy of doctor#8217;s appointments today, so he decided to let me take over the Pfennig. Unfortunately it will go out a little later than usual, as I always struggle to get all of my thoughts together so early in the morning. Its not that I come in late (I was here two hours before everyone else) but it just takes me much longer than Chuck to get it all on paper. But enough of the excuses, I#8217;ve got to get writing./p pWeekly jobless claims released in the US yesterday morning fell below 600k for the first time since January#8230;/p

Offshore Providers to Expand Onsite Presence

Outsourcing Insider — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 13:25:40 +0000

Outsourcing has come through a lot of changes since its inception. Its evolution depends on a number of factors like how the market reacts, government intervention, partnerships, and geographical positioning to name a few. The industry adapts to changes in the business environment which is crucial to its survival. Last month, India’s IT-BPO trade body NASSCOM [...]

Stock Market News for July 2, 2009 – Market News

Zacks Market Commentaries — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:14:17 +0000

On Wednesday, US stocks opened the third quarter with a sharp rally but the averages finished well off session highs as caution prevailed ahead of Thursday's jobs report. The markets opened strongly with the Dow Jones industrial average shooting up 133 points before paring some gains to close up 57 points, or 0.7%, to 8,504.06. The Nasdaq added 11 points, or 0.6%, to 1,845.72 and the broader S&P 500 index edged up 4 points, or 0.4%, to 923.33. A better-than-expected report on Chinese manufacturing and General Mills' (NYSE:GIS) solid quarterly earnings also helped sentiments on the Street as investors shrugged off a report from ADP which showed companies in the US cut 473,000 jobs in June.

US stocks had declined Tuesday after an unexpected decline in consumer confidence sparked a sell off, but the S&P 500 index managed to end the quarter with a 15.2% gain, its best quarterly performance in a decade. Volume was markedly low with only 948 million shares trading. Advancing stocks beat decliners by a three to one margin. The CBOE Vix, the measure of market volatility, eased 0.5% to 26.22. Thursday, markets will turn their focus towards the employment scenario, as the Labor Department releases its June jobs report.

Among ten S&P industry groupings, eight moved higher while financials and healthcare stocks led on the downside. Shares of consumer-related companies led with modest gains of 1.9% while utilities added 1.4%. On the DJIA, Kraft (NYSE:KFT) jumped 5%, the most since December, after rival General Mills (NYSE:GIS) reported better-than-expected fiscal fourth quarter earnings on strong sales of its cereal and dough products and upbeat yearly guidance. Yum! Brands Inc. (NYSE:YUM) surged 5% after it was recommended by Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS). Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) added 3% after it was upgraded to "market perform" from "market underperform." On the downside, shares of Bank of America (NYSE:BAC), American Express (NYSE:AXP) and JP Morgan (NYSE:JPM) moved lower, declining at least 1.0%. Shares of Chevron Corp (NYSE:CVX) rose 0.4 percent to $66.52, while Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM) added almost 1 percent to $70.56.

Although the attention will be on today's jobs report, weekly jobless claims and factory orders are also likely to draw attention. ECB President Trichet's comments will be scoured for any change in plans to increase asset purchases, although interest rate levels as expected to have remained unchanged.

Zacks Investment Research

Stock Market News for July 1, 2009 – Market News

Zacks Market Commentaries — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 14:02:47 +0000

US stocks fell Tuesday after a surprise decline in consumer confidence sparked a sell off on the Street, but the S&P 500 managed to end the quarter with a 15.2% gain, its best quarterly performance in more than a decade. Also hurting the sentiment was a report from the Labor Department which noted unemployment rate jumped in all 372 metropolitan areas.

Stocks touched multi-month highs during the quarter, with the S&P surging 40% after plunging to 12-year lows on March 9. The period from mid-March to mid-June saw the Dow average shooting up 34% on hopes that the US economy was coming out of a recession. However, rising yields, worries of inflation and dismal economic numbers during the past two weeks failed to provide further boost to sentiments on the Street and the rally fizzled out. Nevertheless, fears of a complete failure of the financial system were shrugged off by investors and many analysts believe stocks are on a more solid ground than they were before. Tech-laden Nasdaq was by far the best performer, recording its fourth straight monthly gain.

On Tuesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 82.38 points, or 1%, to 8,447.00; the S&P 500 declined 7.90 points, or 0.9%, to 919.33, and the Nasdaq slid 9.02 points, or 0.5%, to 1,835.04. On the New York Stock Exchange, declining issues beat advancing stocks three to two.

The market's climb over the past quarter was led by a 30% jump among financial shares, 25% among basic material issues, 21% among technology stocks, and 21% among the industrials. After plunging to 17-year lows in early March, financials have staged a spectacular comeback surging 97% amid hopes that the worst of the banking crisis is over.

On Tuesday, the June Consumer Confidence index from the Conference Board, a private research group, declined to 49.3, from a revised 54.8 in May and was well below projections off 55.3. After the Conference Board reported the figures, Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE:CAT) dropped 4.9% to $33.04; Expedia Inc. (NASDAQ:EXPE) lost 5.1% to $15.11 and Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ:SBUX) declined 5.1% to $13.89. All ten industry groups on the S&P 500 recorded declines, even as a home price gauge showed a lessening rate of decline and manufacturing barometer which indicated June's contraction was less than the prior month's and better than projected.

Among Fed speakers, Evans speaks on the credit crunch at 11:15 AM ET today, following yesterday's remarks by Fed's Bullard, who noted, "I think deflation risks are abating," and Hoenig, tackling the question of "too big to fail," who noted "It will not be realistic for any authority in any regulatory structure to oversee a system where incentives remain to take on excessive risk." Janet Yellen suggested the Fed could hold interest rates near zero for the next several years, advising, "I expect that we will turn the growth corner sometime later this year, but I am not optimistic that the economy will spring back to normal anytime soon," adding further that unemployment will "remain painfully high for several more years."

Zacks Investment Research

Dollar Little Changed

Doug Casey — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:14:57 +0000

pIn the currency market, the dollar was marginally lower against the euro. Late Monday, the euro was trading at $1.4078 vs. $1.4068 on Friday. /p p“The U.S. dollar has started the week a touch firmer, with renewed concerns over the global recovery helping the greenback ahead of a busy week” of economic data, wrote strategists at Brown Brothers Harriman./p pWith the July 4th weekend ahead, the Labor Department will release the closely-watched tally of non-farm payroll losses a day early, on Thursday. Economists are projecting a net loss of about 325,000 jobs in June. Any strong variance from that figure is likely to have repercussions./p pBut if there are further indications that the ‘green shoots’ scenario is correct, will that necessarily have a#8230;/p

Dollar Backs Off

Doug Casey — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 19:30:36 +0000

pIn the currency market, the dollar lost ground to the euro. Late Thursday, the euro was trading at $1.3991 vs. $1.3926 on Wednesday. /p p“Equity and commodity markets advanced, encouraging rotation out of the greenback,” said analysts at Action Economics./p pAlso noted was that, “The dollar has been driven over the last two days by central bank activity. One is the Swiss National Bank, which appears to be continuing its buying of dollars,” said Meg Browne, a currency analyst at Brown Brothers Harriman./p pThe Swiss National Bank is publicly committed to stemming any haven-related appreciation in the franc, but as to what it may be doing, said that it doesn#8217;t comment on intervention rumors./p pHowever, the franc’s strength has proven “increasingly self-sustaining,” says Ashraf#8230;/p

The Friedman Effect: Is Another Bear Market Around the Corner?

Investment U — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 21:04:10 +0000

The Friedman Effect: Is Another Bear Market Around the Corner? by Dr. Mark Skousen, Advisory Panelist In 1961, the great free-market economist Milton Friedman wrote a paper called “The Lag in Effect of Monetary Policy,” wherein he discovered a six- to nine-month delay in how long it would take for a change in monetary policy to be [...]

Thursday’s Market Recap (06/18/09)

Bullish Bankers — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 22:41:48 +0000

The Dow Jones and S&P 500 were up today while the NASDAQ was the only major index in the red, down 0.02% to close at 1807.72. The Dow and S&P were up 0.69% and 0.84% respectively, closing at 85560.00 and 918.37. The 10-year saw prices decline as the yield climbed to 3.808%. Crude oil and gold [...]

Drop in Continuing Unemployment Claims Could Signal Onset of Recovery

Don Miller — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 20:00:25 +0000

pThe economy continued to show signs of recovery from the worst recession in 60 years as the total number of Americans receiving unemployment benefits dropped for the first time since January, the Labor Department reported yesterday (Thursday). /p pThe good news came in spite of a small jump in initial applications for state unemployment insurance, which rose by a more-than-expected 3,000 to 608,000 in the week ended June 13. Analysts polled bystrongemReuters/em/strong were expecting claims to dip to 600,000 from a previously reported 601,000./p pBut analysts were largely focused on a trend in continuing claims, which tracks jobless workers who stayed on government benefit rolls./p pThose claims plunged by 148,000 to a smaller-than-anticipated 6.69 million in the week ended June 6, the latest week#8230;/p

Empower the Fed? Details of Obama’s New Plan, Inflation Forecast, Gold Advice and More!

Contrarian Profits — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:00:18 +0000

pThe biggest financial reform of our generation… The 5 dives headfirst into Obama’s new plan#8230; Stock market sell-off pauses… Wayne Burritt with the next short-term technical target#8230; Dollar dips on new government reform… a href="http://www.contrarianprofits.com/articles/author/chris-mayer/" class="alinks_links"Chris Mayer/a on the near certainty of inflation#8230; Paul Van Eden packs some sober advice on gold#8230; Plus, feeling frustrated by the Fed’s free reign? A cause worth supporting, below#8230;/p p Are we reading this right? strongThe new president wants to give the Federal Reserve#8230; more power? The very body that’s easy credit policies over the past 15 years helped fulminate the largest speculative bubble in history… could soon oversee nearly every major company in the U.S.?/strong/p p In a surprisingly brief (for Washington standards) 88-page plan released yesterday, strongPresident Obama revealed the first steps toward the biggest#8230;/strong/p

Stock Market News for June 19, 2009 – Market News

Zacks Market Commentaries — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 14:06:37 +0000

US stocks rose Thursday, helped by an advance in banking and healthcare stocks and a report on jobless claims and regional manufacturing revived hopes that the worst of the economic crisis is over. Breaking a three-day losing run, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 58.42 points to 8555.60 and the S&P 500 index advanced 7.66 points to 918.37. Tech-heavy NASDAQ ended the day little changed. The S&P is now up 35.5% above its 12-year low hit on March 9.

Although financials have been a drag this week, Thursday saw the sector recording gains after a three-day losing streak and leading the list of gainers among the 10 S&P 500 industry groups with an advance of 2.5%. Discover Financial Services (NYSE:DFS) rose 4% after reporting a less-than-anticipated growth in bad loans. Lincoln National (NYSE:LNC) jumped almost 7% after it was upgraded by Credit Suisse (NYSE:CS). Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) surged 4.9% and JP Morgan (NYSE:JPM) added 4.4%. However, a WSJ report said there was a possibility that General Electric (NYSE:GE) may choose to spin off its financial unit rather than accept the burden of government oversight of its non-financial operations, sending its shares down 1.5%. However, volume remained light at 1.1 billion.

The Department of Labor's report yesterday showed number of people collecting unemployment benefits after the initial week recorded its biggest decline since November 2001. New jobless claims, however, were up slightly as expected.

With massive treasury auctions due next week, Treasury prices declined, sending yields higher. The Treasury has announced plans to sell a record $165 billion debt next week, including $31 billion 13-week, $30 billion 26-week, $40 billion 2-year notes, $37 billion 5-years and $27 billion 7-years, to help fund stimulus spending. However, traders are increasingly getting worried that massive government spending could push food and energy prices higher, and eventually lead to inflation. As protection against a possible inflationary spiral and US dollar weakness, traders have bid up crude and other commodity prices, even as demand remains weak. Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS), however, recently advised oil prices could hit $95/barrel by late 2010. Further pressuring the outlook for inflation, No one expects the supply train to dwindle soon.

Utilities gained 2.2% yesterday as investors sought higher-yielding investments. Healthcare stocks rose 2.2% as traders picked up defensive plays. Technology stocks declined after Needham & Co. downgraded SanDisk (NASDAQ:SNDK) to "underperform," citing weakness in the NAND flash sector. SanDisk (NASDAQ:SNDK) shares plunged 6.1%, and Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE:AMD) fell 5.6%; Broadcom (NASDAQ:BRCM) was off 3.2%. After the market close, Research in Motion (NASDAQ:RIMM) reported better-than-expected results, but gave an outlook at the low end of Street targets.

Today being the end of the two day "quadruple witching" period, which marks the June expirations of stock futures and options with positions rolled into September contracts, trading is expected to remain volatile. CarMax (NYSE:KMX) is due to report quarterly earnings.

Zacks Investment Research

Dollar Declines

Doug Casey — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 19:10:20 +0000

p class="maintextDRP"In the currency market, the dollar slipped against the euro. Late Tuesday, the euro was trading at $1.3846 vs. $1.378 on Monday. br / The buck slid after two days of strong gains, as the data released yesterday tended to suggest a potential recovery in the US economy./p pFirst up, the Commerce Department reported that housing starts jumped 17.2% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 532,000, after plunging to a post-World War II low in April. That exceeded economists’ expectations for a rise only to 485,000./p pIt may have been a surprise to the upside, but the fact remains that, “While bottoming is an important step, there is little upside evidence in housing to suggest recovery,” wrote Stephen Gallagher, of Société Générale./p pThen, the#8230;/p

Do you see what I see?

James Hamilton — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 14:24:12 +0000

I'm still looking for, and still not seeing, the economic recovery that everybody is talking about.

Source: FRED.

One bit of good news this week was the Census Bureau report that nominal seasonally adjusted U.S. retail and food services sales rose 0.5% in May. But of the $1.57 billion increase in total spending, almost $1 billion of it came from extra spending at gasoline stations. An optimist might read that as an indication that consumers are now prepared to spend more, and just happened to devote most of that extra spending to gas. A pessimist might worry that it portends further cuts in spending on other items ahead. But then, pessimists always find something to worry about, don't they?

National average U.S. gasoline retail price. Source: NewJerseyGasPrices.com.

Or perhaps we can take some cheer from the Labor Department report that new claims for unemployment insurance fell again this week. In principle that could be quite a promising signal. But this week's number puts the 4-week moving average barely below the value we saw May 7.

Seasonally adjusted weekly new claims for unemployment insurance (black line) and 4-week average (blue line) so far this year.

Count Jeff Frankel among the skeptics who see no hint of recovery in total hours worked.

Seasonally adjusted index of aggregate weekly hours (CES0500000034), from BLS.

So maybe all the optimism is inspired by favorable developments elsewhere on this globe. Some point to a resumption of strong economic growth from China. But Edward Hugh (via Brad DeLong) notes that any growth in China is not coming from their ability to sell more products to the rest of us.

Source: Edward Hugh.

Is China's domestic expansion so strong that it can carry this all by itself? Hugh steers us to Macro Man, who thinks that a big part of what's happening is the Chinese are simply buying raw commodities to stockpile. Their copper imports, for example, far exceed what could plausibly be attributed to increased domestic production.

Source: Macro Man.

The above graph, by the way, appears to just go through April, and China's copper imports were up another 6% from those sky-high April values in May. Macro Man has similar graphs for China's imports of coal and iron, and a slightly less dramatic picture for oil. All of which may have something to do with the fact that, despite what looks to me to still be a very weak world economy, the average commodity price in the graph below has increased by over 25% in the last three months.

Prices of assorted commodities normalized at March 17, 2009 = 100. Data source: WSJ commodity cash prices, via Webstract.

Technorati Tags: macroeconomics, China, commodities, economics, recession

Prices Continue to Rise

Bullish Bankers — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 11:00:51 +0000

“The Labor Department reported that prices received by producers of finished goods rose 0.3 percent last month, further blunting the prospect that the economy was veering into a vicious cycle of lower prices and lower wages known as deflation.” (See http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/business/economy/15econ.html?hp.) Analysts continue to be amazed that we have not yet moved into a deflationary [...]

Dollar Firms

Doug Casey — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 19:00:44 +0000

pIn the currency market, the dollar was sharply higher against the euro. Late Friday, the euro was trading at $1.3968 vs. $1.4171 on Thursday. br / The day’s big numbers were in the much-anticipated employment report from the Labor Department, which said that job losses slowed in May. Labor said that nonfarm payrolls declined by 345,000, the smallest job destruction in eight months. That was far under economists’ projections for something closer to 500,000./p pThe currency market surely took note, as this “may be the stamp of approval we#8217;ve ended the panic period,” in the words of Max Bublitz, chief strategist at SCM Advisors. “People think they don#8217;t need to sell the dollar.”/p pHowever, the drop in job loss was nowhere near job creation.#8230;/p

Obama: “A Long Way to Go to Recovery”

Michael E. Brisky — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 14:19:00 +0000

I've been trying to track stimulus related projects and what impact they are going to have on the economy. In doing some digging at a href="http://www.recovery.gov/"recovery.gov/a, and other various sites, the stimulus money allocated so far has been in 3 areas:br /br /1) Increased Medicaid Fundingbr /br /2) Highway Infrastructure Investmentbr /br /3) State Fiscal Stabilization Fundbr /br /Today we got a little more commentary by the a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE5572M020090608"President on the employment situation/a:br /br /ulliPresident a href="http://www.reuters.com/news/globalcoverage/barackobama" title="Full coverage of President Barack Obama"Barack Obama/a said on Monday he expected to create or save 600,000 jobs over the next 100 days by expediting 10 major projects funded by a huge stimulus package that Congress passed in February./lili"We have a long way to go on our road to recovery, but we are going the right way," Obama said. His statement came three days after a Labor Department report showed the U.S. unemployment rate rose to 9.4 percent in May, even though the pace of monthly job losses slowed to 345,000./li/ulThe concept of "create of save" xx amount of jobs is an abstract concept. There is no way to measure saved jobs, but it gives the government an out in a difficult job market. When I look at the major investments the stimulus has made so far, only highway infrastructure investment carries the potential to create jobs. The other funds are allocated to social programs and play more into that "saved jobs" grey area.br /br /Don't get me wrong, many states are in serious trouble. The lack of fiscal discipline has been a problem on the national, state, and individual level. I'm just skeptical in sweeping, federal government programs and their potential to address the problem. There are states that have avoided crisis by being more conservative. a href="http://www.fundmymutualfund.com/2009/06/real-green-shoot-dakotas.html"Fund My Mutual Fund picked up this story today/a. br /br /In my opinion, the only way to fix these fiscal problems is to face some tough realities. We need to take our medicine and cut expenditures so we can be functional again in the future. If we don't do this, we will have a society completely at the mercy of a ever-increasing federal government which is only printing money for a short-term fix. This trend will only escalate without an shift in policy.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/819581243324579563-1559672606413246878?l=briskycapital.blogspot.com'//div

Stock Market News for June 8, 2009 – Market News

Zacks Market Commentaries — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 14:01:09 +0000

U.S. stocks bounced for the third straight week as a U.S. government report showed the pace of job losses is showing signs of softening. The Labor Department report, which showed roughly 345,000 non-farm jobs were eliminated in May, took economists by surprise who were expecting 520,000 job cuts. The numbers were also lowest since September, when 320,000 jobs were lost. However, a jump in unemployment rate to a fresh 25-year high served a reminder that the much-anticipated recovery would be slow. At the end of a seesaw session, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which has gained in 11 of the last 13 weeks, edged up 13 points while tech-heavy Nasdaq and the S&P 500 index remained almost flat. The DJIA has to gain 0.2% before it turns flat for the year.

Bets that the economy is turning a corner have lifted stocks off their year lows hit in March, even as the US government and the Federal Reserve have intensified efforts to end the recession by pledging trillions of dollars. The S&P 500 index has jumped 39% since hitting its low on March 9. However, the three-month old market rally, which has added more than 2,200 points to the DJIA, is surprising analysts and some say investors are shedding the caution too early. Not many are ready to agree that the economy is on a path to recovery, in the backdrop of ballooning government spending, Treasury yields facing upward pressure from increasing supply, and rising commodity prices heightening risk of inflation. The recent jump in commodity prices has also been fueled in part by expectations for a stimulus-driven rebound in China's economy. Year-to-date crude prices have soared 53.45%, gold prices 8.85%, copper 61.99%, and silver 40.73%.

Markets this week are nevertheless expected to take a cue from a number of posts, among which consumer confidence is likely to prove vital. On Friday the University of Michigan's June measure of consumer confidence is expected to record its fourth monthly increase, from 68.7 to 69.2, as the index continues its advance from 56.3 posted in February. Investors are also likely to follow data emerging from China, with Thursday seeing reports on fixed-asset investments and May industrial production statistics due on Friday.

On Friday, San Francisco Fed President Janet Yellen voiced concern over rising bond yields. Yellen noted if the increase in Treasury yields are driven by fears of rising inflation, it would be "disconcerting." Fed fund futures now show a 40% chance the Central Bank will lift interest rates at its September meeting; only a week ago the odds were a mere 13%. This week's Treasury auction calendar shows $19 billion in 10-years and $11 billion in 30-years.

Also, according to the Washington Post, the Obama Administration may announce a greater number of financial firms would be allowed to repay government funds. Such a move would not only undermine fears of nationalization, but also suggest a growing optimism in the strength of the financial sector, whose credit crisis initiated the global economic recession.

Zacks Investment Research

Not a robust recovery

James Hamilton — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 19:14:42 +0000

Often after a sharp economic downturn we observe an equally dramatic recovery. But nobody can claim to be seeing that so far in the currently available data.

Since the beginning of April, we've been discussing one potentially favorable indicator in the form of new claims for unemployment insurance. In each of the last 6 recessions, the 4-week average of this series reached a peak less than 8 weeks before the economic recovery began. None of the readings over the last 8 weeks exceeded the value reached April 9, consistent with the hypothesis that we are past the peak in new claims for this cycle.

Black line: 4-week average of seasonally adjusted weekly initial claims for unemployment insurance, from Department of Labor via Webstract. Shaded areas correspond to recessions as judged by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

On the other hand, the most recent values for initial unemployment claims have not shown further improvements. Although the number released on Thursday was widely reported in the press as a drop in the number of new claims, it actually resulted in a slight increase in the 4-week average, putting the latter pretty much back where it was 4 weeks ago. If we were really beginning a recovery similar to that experienced in previous episodes, we should be seeing sharper drops in this number at this point.

Detailed behavior of seasonally adjusted weekly new claims for unemployment insurance (black line) and 4-week average (blue line) associated with historical peaks and most recent episode. Vertical lines in first five episodes denote the first week of the first month following the business cycle trough as designated by the NBER.

And if an economic recovery had begun at this point, we should be seeing confirmation in a number of other indicators. The downturn in business fixed investment gained momentum late in this cycle, leading me to expect the recovery to begin with growth in personal consumption and housing.

Average cumulative change in 100 times the natural log of real GDP or its respective component beginning from the business cycle peak for the 10 recessions between 1947 and 2001. Horizontal axis denotes quarters after the peak.

One indicator I'm watching in particular is new car sales, since current sales are unsustainably low given scrappage of old vehicles. But I see little sunshine in the May auto sales numbers. Total light vehicles sold in the U.S. had been down 34% between April 2008 and April 2009, and were down that same 34% between May 2008 and May 2009.

Light vehicles sold in the United States. Data source: Wardsauto.com

We did now get two consecutive monthly increases in disposable personal income, and that's certainly good news. But it's interesting and important that real personal consumption expenditures actually fell across those months, leaving some doubt about whether PCE growth will make a positive contribution to the 2009:Q2 GDP numbers.

Source: Calculated Risk.

Consumer sentiment has lifted, but has not apparently brought spending up with it.

Reuters/Michigan index of consumer sentiment. Data source: FRED and MarketWatch.

The reason for that, I believe, is that the recent consumption slowdown is not an "animal spirits" kind of move, but instead is at least in part a response to a previous profound imbalance in the ratio of household debt to GDP. Capital markets were seriously malfunctioning over 2004-2006, with many loans made that we can see today were in the interests of neither borrowers nor lenders. Deleveraging is going to be an unavoidable part of the correction process, no matter how consumers feel.

Household debt as a fraction of GDP. Data source: Federal Reserve Board Flow of Funds, Table L2.

The drop in oil prices since last summer was certainly helpful for that goal of strengthening household finances. But that also makes the significant move in oil prices back up since December a troubling development.

National average U.S. gasoline retail price. Source: NewJerseyGasPrices.com.

The 16% increase in gasoline prices between December and February resulted in an additional $37 billion spending by consumers at an annual rate on gasoline and fuel oil, increasing the share of energy purchases in consumer budgets from 4.85% in December to 5.17% in February. The additional 40% increase we've seen in the retail price of gasoline since February has likely brought that expenditure share back up above 6%.

Energy expenditures as a fraction of consumer spending. Calculated as 100 times nominal monthly consumption expenditures on energy goods and services divided by total personal consumption expenditures. Data source: BEA Table 2.3.5U, “Personal Consumption Expenditures by Major Type of Product and Expenditure,” obtained from Econstats. Dashed line is drawn at 6.0%.

A robust recovery? How and where?

Technorati Tags: macroeconomics, autos, auto sales, economics, recession

Has the Unemployment Scene Bottomed?

Contrarian Profits — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 20:14:52 +0000

pThe U.S. economy shed “only” 345,000 jobs in May, the Labor Department said this morning. We forecast Wednesday that today’s employment gauge would beat expectations, but wow… this number smashed the Street’s guess of 520,000. Last month’s loss is the smallest since it all hit the fan last September./p pMay’s number establishes a trend for 2009, too. The jobs scene is far from rosy, but at least it doesn’t seem to be getting worse…not yet anyway./p p style="text-align: center;"a class="flickr-image alignnone" title="US Unemployment Rate" href="http://www.agorafinancial.com/5min/"/a/p pSo “Buy, buy, buy!” as they say in Cramerica, right? U.S. index futures jumped on the news and the Dow and S#38;P 500 opened up 1%. And if you aren’t the type to be bothered by the fine print, we suggest you slam the buy button#8230;/p

Big, Positive Surprise in Jobs Data – Analyst Blog

Charles Rotblut — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 14:59:58 +0000

May Job Loss Shockingly Much Lower Than Forecast

Just 345,000 jobs were lost last month, the smallest decline since last September. The unemployment rate, however, rose to 9.4% -- its highest level since August 1983.

The nonfarm payrolls number is shocking. The drop was less than even the most optimistic forecasts had predicted. A smaller-than-expected drop in construction and temporary jobs appears to have played the biggest role in keeping the losses from being worse.

Adding to the surprise was an improvement in April's job losses. The Labor Department now says 504,000 jobs were cut in April, versus the original estimate of 539,000 losses.

Though the positive surprise in nonfarm payrolls is very welcome, it is important to realize that the economy continues to contract. A smaller number of job losses still means that more people were laid off than were hired. Furthermore, the rising unemployment rate signals that more and more people are unable to find work.

That said, nearly all of the data released over the past couple of months points to the same thing -- the pace of economic deterioration is slowing.

This is a step in the right direction and suggests that a resumption of growth could occur at some point during the second half of the year.

The rally in commodity prices and last month's consumer confidence surveys suggest many expect conditions to improve over next 6 months.

However, once GDP does return to positive territory, I'm not convinced many people will feel like they are part of an expanding economy.

Rather, I'm worried we could be looking at another jobless recovery. There are thousands of manufacturing jobs in the U.S. that won't be replaced.

Rising foreclosures and credit card defaults will keep the housing market from rebounding. And CFOs will be more focused on keeping costs contained than allowing aggressive expansion.

It's important to realize that though first-quarter earnings were better-than-feared and stocks have rallied since early March, full-year corporate earnings projections haven't moved very much. Though we are seeing the earnings estimate revisions ratio (total positive revisions divided by total negative revisions) improve, top-down profit forecasts for the S&P 500 have been essentially unchanged.

At the same time, stocks and commodities have rallied since March. The upward moves have been fueled by a shift in risk tolerance. Though there are still things that could go bump in the night, I am more optimistic now than I was 2 months ago.

Given this backdrop, investors need to move off of the sidelines, while still remaining selective. Look for companies that could benefit from the recovery, such as Research in Motion (RIMM), and combine them with less economically sensitive names like Healthsouth (HLS). At the same time, don't chase stocks whose valuations have become overly optimistic, such as J. C. Penney (JCP).

As far as the commodities rally, tread carefully, as some companies like Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan (POT) will be affected by factors outside of the economy. Conversely, other companies, like Weatherford (WFT) should provide better exposure to the early-cycle improvements.
Read the full analyst report on "RIMM"
Read the full analyst report on "HLS"
Read the full analyst report on "JCP"
Read the full analyst report on "POT"
Read the full analyst report on "WFT"
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Gold and silver fall as jobs data lessen metals’ appeal (GLD, SLV)

ETF Daily News — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 14:30:39 +0000

Gold and silver futures fell sharply Friday, extending their weekly losses as an upbeat U.S. employment report boosted hopes for an economic recovery and served to reduce the safe-haven investment appeal of precious metals. Nonfarm payroll fell 345,000 in May, the Labor Department reported, but this drop was much less than the 500,000 expected by analysts [...]

Dollar Shifts Gears

Doug Casey — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 19:10:23 +0000

p class="maintextDRP"In the currency market, the dollar abruptly reversed field and rose against the euro. Late Wednesday, the euro was trading at $1.4138 vs. $1.4323 on Tuesday. /p pAccording to emMarketwatch.com/em, “the dollar got a boost after a Reuters report said central banks still sought the safety of dollar investments. Citing unnamed sources, the report said central banks in China, Japan, India and South Korea would likely shrug off portfolio losses stemming from any potential cut in the U.S. sovereign credit rating, opting to continue buying dollars because there are no alternatives in terms of the liquidity afforded by the currency.”/p pAmong the day’s numbers, the most closely analyzed was the ADP’s employment index, which indicated that the private sector eliminated 520,000 net#8230;/p

Dollar Declines

Doug Casey — Fri, 29 May 2009 19:08:48 +0000

pIn the currency market, the dollar slipped against the euro. Late Thursday, the euro was trading at $1.3923 vs. $1.3908 on Wednesday. /p pThere was a wealth of data, albeit inconclusive, to pick through yesterday. Leading off, the Commerce Department reported that new single-family home sales advanced in April for the second time this year. Sales increased 0.3% from March, to an annual pace of 352,000 houses, a weaker showing that economists expected./p pNext, the Labor Department said initial jobless claims fell by 13,000, to 623,000, in the week ended May 23, from a revised 636,000 the prior week. That was a lower number than forecast, and it led Mickey Levy, chief economist at Bank of America in New York, to comment#8230;/p

You Are Being Robbed!

Contrarian Profits — Fri, 22 May 2009 19:01:56 +0000

pWashington#8217;s latest bailout scheme will rob you blind for years to come. I object! Sometimes the stuff we talk about here is pretty academic. This country is up… that sector is down. Sometimes it#8217;s all about a specific stock idea that you might care to invest in./p pBut today, I am writing to you about something that affects me on the most personal level (I#8217;ll just bet it affects you the same way too), and I#8217;m really ticked off about it./p pstrongBandits in Academic Robes/strong/p pI#8217;ve got a statement in front of me right now by Gregory Mankiw and Kenneth Rogoff, baldly stating that they wish to take away a major portion of my hard-earned money (and yours) for years to come –#8230;/p

Dollar Cratering

Doug Casey — Fri, 22 May 2009 18:49:44 +0000

pIn the currency market, the dollar continued to fall against the euro. Late Thursday, the euro was trading at $1.3904 vs. $1.3829 on Wednesday. br / The dollar index, which tracks the buck against a trade-weighted basket of six major counterparts, fell to its low point for the year as Treasury yields rose and commodity prices hinted at higher inflation./p pThere was a spate of economic data through which to pick yesterday, beginning with the Philadelphia Fed’s report on manufacturing in that region. While the reading improved to -22.6 in May, from -24.4 in April, that’s still very weak, as numbers below zero indicate contraction in the industry./p pNext, the Labor Department reported initial jobless claims, which dropped by 12,000 to 631,000 in the#8230;/p

A National “Stress Test”

Contrarian Profits — Fri, 22 May 2009 18:31:38 +0000

pBy now, you have surely heard that our elitist banks passed their recent government sponsored “stress test”? Forget about it! Relying on this incestuous bunch to grade themselves is like putting Madonna in charge of screening convent applicants. Take no comfort in shams of this nature./p pThere are bigger fish being fried. The entire American nation is in the crosshairs and will be severely tested like never before./p pVery few people comprehend the scope of the problems that continue to unfold. The Dow is up a couple of thousand points so everything must be normalizing, no?/p pNo! Look deeper./p pstrongThe US Hits the Treadmill/strong/p pThe core of our problems lies deep in the roots of the overall system./p ul type="disc" liThe US economic model has been extremely flawed#8230;/li/ul

Thursday’s Market Recap (05/21/09)

Bullish Bankers — Fri, 22 May 2009 00:46:01 +0000

The markets were down today, with the NASDAQ down 1.89%. The S&P closed at 888.33 while the Dow Jones Industrial Average finished at 8292.13, down 1.68% and 1.54% respectively. The 10-year saw yields rise to 3.368% as the price on the treasury fell. Oil prices declined to settle at $61.05, while gold headed the other way, settling [...]

Dollar Rallies Strongly Against Euro

Doug Casey — Mon, 18 May 2009 18:46:31 +0000

pIn the currency market, the dollar was sharply higher against the euro. Late Friday, the euro was trading at $1.3471 vs. $1.3633 on Thursday. /p pThe data parade was led yesterday by the Labor Department, which reported that consumer prices were unchanged in April, led by a decline in energy prices. That represented stabilization, following a 0.7% slide in the past 12 months, the largest in 54 years./p pCore inflation - excluding food and energy prices - has actually accelerated in the past four months, rising 0.3% in April, the biggest increase since last July. But that’s a tad misleading, as core CPI was boosted in April by a 9.3% increase in tobacco prices as a new federal excise tax was implemented.#8230;/p

Costs Up, Sales Down – A Formula for Retail Disaster

Contrarian Profits — Mon, 18 May 2009 16:30:07 +0000

pFor those of us who predict stuff for a living, this is one of those lovely moments in economics when we know for a fact that only one of two things will happen in the near future. We now know one thing for a fact#8230; that in the first third of the second quarter of 2009, American retailers paid more and sold less, both by price and by unit. Simple arithmetic tells you that this means lower profits./p pem#8220;How to earn 367% off American Retail#8217;s #8220;Seven-Ten Split.#8221;/em/p pem#8220;Biggest jump in wholesale food prices in more than a year!#8221;/em/p p– Associated Press, commenting on the Labor Department#8217;s latest wholesale prices report/p pI know that Justice and I have gone on for some length now on#8230;/p

Dollar Slightly Lower

Doug Casey — Fri, 15 May 2009 18:31:52 +0000

p class="maintextDRP"In the currency market, the dollar slipped against the euro. Late Thursday, the euro was trading at $1.3633 vs. $1.3597 on Wednesday. br / The number of the day came from the Labor Department, which reported that initial jobless claims rose 32,000 to a seasonally adjusted 637,000 in the week ended May 9. That was the highest level since mid-April./p pLabor also said the four-week average of new claims rose by 6,000 to 630,500, also the highest level since April 18. The four-week average is considered a more reliable figure because it smoothes out distortions caused by anomalies./p pObviously, “the labor market is not responding to the so called ‘Green Shoots’,” wrote Steve Ricchiuto, chief economist at Mizuho Securities. And the layoffs at Chrysler#8230;/p

Where’s my recovery, dude?

James Hamilton — Fri, 15 May 2009 02:53:06 +0000

A couple of disappointments in this week's data.

New claims for unemployment insurance have peaked just before the end of each of the last half-dozen recessions.

Black line: 4-week average of seasonally adjusted weekly initial claims for unemployment insurance, from Department of Labor via Webstract. Shaded areas correspond to recessions as judged by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Unfortunately, the Labor Department reported today that seasonally adjusted new claims for unemployment insurance rose by 32,000 for the most recent available week. That bumps the 4-week average to 630,000, up 6,000 from its value the previous week, though the average is still below its peak of 659,000 reported April 9. That the downward trajectory will resume next week is far from clear.

Black line: seasonally adjusted weekly new claims for unemployment insurance from January 1 through May 14, 2009. Blue line: 4-week average.

We also received the news yesterday that monthly sales for retail and food services fell 0.4% in April, the second consecutive monthly drop. That, too, is a disappointment for those who are waiting for increased consumption spending to lift us out of recession.

Source: FRED.

Technorati Tags: employment, recession, macroeconomics, economics

Dollar Rises Against Euro

Doug Casey — Thu, 14 May 2009 18:49:27 +0000

pIn the currency market, the dollar rose against the euro. Late Wednesday, the euro was trading at $1.3597 vs. $1.3644 on Tuesday. br / Analysts saw the buck benefiting from a flow back into the pre-eminent currency safe haven./p pThe day’s most significant hard number came from the Commerce Department, which reported that retail sales pulled back again in April, dropping a seasonally adjusted 0.4%, the eighth decline in the past 10 months and 9.4% lower year-over-year./p pThat surprised economists, who were forecasting a small rise in sales. “The dollar gained across the board in North American trading after weaker than expected U.S. retail sales called the #8216;green shoots#8217; thesis into question,” wrote strategists at Brown Brothers Harriman. “This tug of war is likely#8230;/p

Wall St Higher as Tech, Defensive Sectors Boost

Contrarian Profits — Thu, 14 May 2009 17:15:55 +0000

pU.S. stocks rose on Thursday, underpinned by a rebound in technology shares, while renewed concerns about the economy boosted defensive stocks./p p Investors snapped up shares of technology bellwethers a day after the semiconductor index #60;.SOXX#62; fell for a fifth straight day. Apple Inc led the Nasdaq higher, climbing 1.8 percent to $121.59, while the semiconductor index gained nearly 2 percent. /p p Stocks in defensive sectors such as consumer staples and health care also advanced, with Coca-Cola Co (a href="http://www.google.com/finance?q=ko"KO/a) up 1.6 percent to $44.34 and Pfizer Inc adding 0.8 percent to $15.39. /p p #8220;What we#8217;ve seen the past three days is not that money#8217;s leaving the market, but just flowing in that (defensive) direction and trying to find the better deal,#8221; said Marc Pado,#8230;/p

Dollar Whacked

Doug Casey — Mon, 11 May 2009 20:24:32 +0000

pIn the currency market, the dollar crashed against the euro. Late Friday, the euro was trading at $1.3627 vs. $1.3403 on Thursday. /p pThe Labor Department’s unemployment figures were the most anticipated data of the day, and they came in gloomy indeed./p pLabor said that, in April, there were 539,000 jobs lost, while the unemployment rate skied to 8.9%, the highest level in 26 years. Dreadful by any standard, yet it was an improvement, representing an easing in the pace of massive job destruction that had averaged 680,000 over the previous five months./p pIn addition, job losses for February and March were revised higher by a combined total of 66,000./p p“It is a sobering toll,” said President Barak Obama. “We#8217;re still in the midst#8230;/p

Census Hiring and Reporting Methods Minimize April Unemployment Numbers

Don Miller — Mon, 11 May 2009 17:00:52 +0000

pEmployers cut 539,000 jobs in April, the lowest total in six months, but the Labor Department said the unemployment rate still soared to 8.9%, from 8.5% in March. While some analysts viewed the latest report as a sign of a nascent economic recovery, the unemployment numbers are almost certain to head higher before the recession is declared over./p pLast week’s report could have been worse if the numbers hadn’t been held in check by a burst of federal government hiring of temporary workers to prepare for the 2010 Census./p pThe report was also skewed by the way the government categorizes the unemployed. As strongema href="http://www.moneymorning.com" class="alinks_links"Money Morning/a/em/strong previously reported, a href="http://www.moneymorning.com/2009/01/26/unemployment-rate-2/" target="_blank"if laid-off workers who have given up looking for new jobs or have settled for part-time#8230;/a/p

Friday’s Market Recap (05/08/2009)

Bullish Bankers — Sat, 09 May 2009 03:41:15 +0000

The markets sustained their week long rally on Friday with advances across the three major U.S. indicies. The Dow Jones Industrial Average moved up 1.96% to close at a level of 8,574.65. The Nasdaq Composite and S&P 500 rose 1.33% and 2.41% respectively closing at levels of 1,739.00 and 929.23. The rallies in the major [...]

Dollar Drifts Lower

Doug Casey — Fri, 08 May 2009 17:38:01 +0000

p class="maintextDRP"In the currency market, the dollar prolonged its slide against the euro. Late Thursday, the euro was trading at $1.3403 vs. $1.3341 on Wednesday. /p pThe common currency got a boost, as emMarketWatch.com/em wrote, “after the European Central Bank announced minimal actions that would hurt the region#8217;s shared currency while stabilizing the region#8217;s financial markets and economy./p p“The European Central Bank cut borrowing costs and said it would buy up to 60 billion euros ($80 billion) in covered bonds, a security popular in Europe and backed by mortgages or public-sector loans #8230;/p p“As ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet discussed details of the plan’s size and timing, traders became more comfortable with the notion it was a targeted move and would not be immediate, relieving fears#8230;/p

This shoot is definitely growing bigger and greener

James Hamilton — Fri, 08 May 2009 01:43:54 +0000

The Labor Department reported today that seasonally adjusted new claims for unemployment insurance fell by 34,000 to 601,000 for the most recent available week, resulting in a reduction of the 4-week average for this series for the fourth consecutive week in a row.

We have been highlighting these numbers for the last four weeks ([1], [2], [3], [4]), inspired by a brief statement that appeared in the Wall Street Journal on March 28. The WSJ reported that Robert Gordon, professor of economics at Northwestern University and highly regarded business cycle expert, had noticed that the 4-week average of new unemployment claims tended to peak shortly before the end of historical recessions. I was pleased to see that last week Gordon weighed in in person with his view of these data.

Black line: 4-week average of seasonally adjusted weekly initial claims for unemployment insurance, from Department of Labor via Webstract. Shaded areas correspond to recessions as judged by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

The key question of course is whether the recent declines in new claims mean that we're really past the peak for this business cycle, or whether we could see more bad news in the weeks ahead that bring these numbers up to new highs. In my April 23 and April 30 analyses, I proposed a way to think about this question nonparametrically, that is, without making any statistical assumptions other than that the future will be like the past, simply by counting the number of weeks in previous recessions that were as favorable as we'd seen up to that point but proved to be a false positive signal. Those calculations led me to conclude that the odds were 2 to 1 that the data as of April 23 would later come to be seen as a false positive, but roughly even once we received the more favorable data of April 30.

In his May 1 write-up, Gordon performed a similar calculation to mine, though whereas I used weeks as the basic unit of observation (counting 11 out of 22 false positives), Gordon categorized the data in terms of "episodes" (with 4 out of 8 false positives). In the absence of a clear a priori definition of an "episode", I prefer my metric, but it is interesting and reassuring that we both arrived at the same basic conclusion. Gordon went on to investigate a number of other features of a downturn, such as the length that the recession had already proceeded and the sharpness of the increases prior to the candidate peak. But it is always tricky to rely on those sorts of refinements when one is trying to draw an inference from the limited number of observations that we have available.

I'd pushed the nonparametric approach more or less as far as I was comfortable with last week, and if we want to say something useful about the way that the latest data have strengthened the signal we really need to use more parametric tools that capture some of the key dynamic properties of the new claims numbers themselves. For this purpose, I built a very simple model to forecast the seasonally adjusted new claims number (y_t) in terms of its value the previous week (y_t-1), the 4-week average the previous week (x_t-1), and whether or not we're currently in a recession, with s_t=1 if NBER says week t is part of a recession, and s_t=0 if expansion:

This relation was estimated by ordinary least squares, with standard errors in parentheses. The model implies a great deal of persistence in the new claims numbers, though given enough time the process would revert to historical mean values. If we were certain that the current recession is going to last forever, the forecast from here would go back up and eventually stabilize at a value of 650,000 new claims each week, 27,000 higher than the most recent average.

Imposing the certainty that the recession is going to last forever, however, hardly seems the correct approach. I've instead adopted the perspective that there's a 1.56% chance of it ending in any given week, based on the observation that in the 384 recession weeks between 1969 and 2009, we saw 6 recoveries (6/384 = 0.0156). If you use that assumption from here out (i.e., that s_t obeys a time-homogenous Markov chain), you'd be predicting that, in the absence of any other indications to the contrary, there's a 6% chance that we'll be out of recession in 4 weeks, a 22% chance we'll be out in 16 weeks, and a 50% chance we'll be out in 48 weeks. Those seem to me like pretty reasonable numbers to use.

I then calculated dynamic forecasts of the above model with these assumed transition probabilities for s_t+j. Aficionados will recognize this as a Markov-switching autoregression with directly observable regimes. The diagram below plots the actual weekly data up through this point in black, the 4-week averages in blue, and forecasts of the future 4-week averages from here out as the dashed blue line. Basically the unconditional likelihood that the recession will eventually end slightly outweighs the tendency of new claims to rise if we stay in a recession, and the forecast declines slowly from its current value.

Black line: seasonally adjusted weekly new claims for unemployment insurance from January 1 through May 7, 2009. Blue line: 4-week average. Dashed blue line: forecast of 4-week average for May 14, 2009 through May 6, 2010. Dashed green lines: 70% confidence intervals.

The above graph also plots 70% confidence intervals calculated from this dynamic simulation. The model implies that there is a 15% chance of seeing the new claims numbers go back up above their peak of 4 weeks ago. In other words, there's an 85% chance that the worst numbers for this particular series are now behind us.

Here is how Gordon summarized the numbers that we had available a week ago:

It is always too early to make definitive conclusions, but the recent 2009 peak in new claims looks sufficiently similar to previous recession peaks to allow a conclusion that it is highly probable that the new claims peak has now occurred. The evidence provided here suggests several differences between the recent peak and previous false peaks in earlier recessions. The recent peak occurred much later in the recession than previous false peaks, and the run-up of new claims in the two months prior to the recent peak was substantially faster than in previous false peaks....

My reasoning leads me to conclude that the ultimate NBER trough of the current business cycle is likely to occur in May or June 2009, substantially earlier than is currently predicted by many professional forecasters.

Today's data make Gordon's prediction look even better.

Technorati Tags: employment, recession, macroeconomics, economics

Further progress for initial claims for unemployment insurance

James Hamilton — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 20:19:09 +0000

The Labor Department reported today that initial claims for unemployment insurance fell by 14,000 during the most recent available week. That brings the 4-week average down for the third consecutive week and puts it 3.3% below the peak reached April 9.

Black line: seasonally adjusted new claims for unemployment insurance, weekly since January. Blue line: average of 4 most recent weeks as of each date.

That ongoing drop in the 4-week average is noteworthy because in each of the last 5 recessions, once the new claims number began declining from its peak value reached during the recession, the NBER subsequently dated the recovery from that recession as beginning within 8 weeks.

Black line: 4-week average of seasonally adjusted weekly initial claims for unemployment insurance, from Department of Labor via Webstract. Vertical lines: first week of the first month of a business cycle expansion as subsequently dated by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Reasoning as in my last discussion of these data, one can try to judge how meaningful the latest numbers might be as follows. If we leave out the 1970 recession, there are 230 weeks in which the NBER declared the economy to have been in recession during the 5 recessions of 1974, 1980, 1982, 1990, and 2001. In 22 of these weeks, we saw as big a drop as we've seen this month, namely, the 4-week average dropped by more than 3.3% over a 3-week period. Of these 22 favorable readings, 11 turned out to be part of the final move out of recession, while in the other 11, new claims turned back up to reach a subsequent higher peak. Thus, if all you had to go on was the data on new unemployment claims and its behavior in previous recessions, you might conclude that there's a 50% chance that an economic recovery will have started by the beginning of June.

Technorati Tags: employment, recession, macroeconomics, economics

Dollar Drops Against Euro

Doug Casey — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 18:55:46 +0000

pIn the currency market, the dollar fell against the euro. Late Thursday, the euro was trading at $1.3145 vs. $1.3001 on Wednesday. /p pThe euro got a boost after the Markit euro-zone purchasing managers indexes, which are among the most closely-followed leading indicators, rose to six-month highs./p pEconomists noted that the readings still indicate a sharp contraction in activity. But they offered hope that the second-quarter GDP may contract at a significantly slower pace than that seen in 4Q08 and 1Q09./p pDomestically, the day’s numbers were uniformly ugly, beginning with unemployment. The Labor Department reported that first-time jobless claims rose to 640,000 for the week ending April 18. That’s yet another record high./p pThen the National Association of Realtors reported that sales of existing#8230;/p

What’s China’s Gameplan?

Bill Bonner — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 14:00:40 +0000

pBuenos Aires, Argentina Is the rally still on? We’re not sure. Wednesday, the Dow fell 83 points…after a weak bounce on Tuesday. We expected the rally to last until June and to take the Dow back to the 10,000 range. But anything could happen.br / Andstrong if you depend on 91-day T-bills for your spending money, you’re in a world of hurt./strong The yield is only 0.13%./p pBut maybe things are better on the other side of the planet. How’s China doing? Analysts are “cautiously optimistic,” says a emNew York Times/em report./p pRetail spending in China is said to be up 15%./p pMeanwhile, a report tells us that China is stepping up its purchases of U.S. Treasury debt./p pHmmm… Why would China be doing that? The official response to#8230;/p

Thursday’s Market Recap (04/23/09)

Bullish Bankers — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 00:11:09 +0000

The markets were up today, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average was rose 0.89%. The NASDAQ was closed up 0.37% ending the day at 1652.21, while the S&P was up o.99% to close at 851.92. The yield of the 10-year is currently at 2.921% as the price of the treasury rose. Gold and crude contracts were [...]

Initial claims for unemployment insurance

James Hamilton — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 22:50:09 +0000

The Labor Department reported today that initial claims for unemployment insurance rose by 27,000 in the most recent available week. Although that's a disappointing development, it's still a small enough increase to allow the 4-week average to fall for the second week in a row. Since that declining 4-week average is one of the few encouraging pieces of news in an otherwise discouraging economic landscape, I wanted to take a closer look at just how significant a statistical signal it really sends.

The interest in the 4-week average of new claims for unemployment compensation results from the observation by Northwestern Professor Robert Gordon that, for each of the last six recessions, once the new claims number began declining from its peak value, the NBER subsequently dated the recovery from that recession as beginning within 8 weeks.

Black line: 4-week average of seasonally adjusted weekly initial claims for unemployment insurance, from Department of Labor via Webstract. Vertical lines: first week of the first month of a business cycle expansion as subsequently dated by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
<img alt="new_claims5_apr_09.gif" src="http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2009/04/new_claims5_apr_09.gif"

Here's a close-up of the behavior of the series so far in 2009, with the raw weekly numbers in black and the 4-week average in blue.

Will the latest downward move prove to be the beginning of a recovery, or will we turn around and head back up to a new high? Let's try to pose this as a statistical question. We're trying to figure out whether the number for the 4-week average that was reported two weeks ago will turn out to be the highest value of this recession. Let s_t equal 0 if week t turns out to come before the peak value for the recession, and s_t = 1 if it turns out we're past the peak. Of course we don't know now which is the case, but if t represents a week from one of the previous 6 recessions, we now know enough to assign a value of either 0 or 1 to that week. There are 278 of those earlier observations on s_t from the recessions of 1970, 1974, 1980, 1982, 1990, and 2001.

The question we'd like to ask statistically is the following. Let's take it as given that we're currently in a recession. Let y_t denote the observed two-week percentage change in the 4-week average as of week t. The latest observation is a 1.8% decline, so the most recent value is y_t = -1.8. We'd like to calculate the probability that s_t = 1 if we've seen a 2-week decline in y_t as big as 1.8%, that is, we'd like to find the value of

From the definition of a conditional probability, this can be found by dividing the joint probability by the marginal probability:

We know the denominator of this fraction by looking at the number of those earlier known recession weeks between 1969 and 2001 for which we observed a 2-week decline in the 4-week average for new claims of 1.8% or more. It turns out that there were 46 weeks as favorable or more so as our most recently available datum:

To get the numerator, we count how many of those favorable declines proved to be the real McCoy. The answer is, 17 of them were part of the eventual trip down and out of the recession, but the other 29 represented temporary relief on a path that would eventually reach a new peak before turning down. The answer to our original question of interest, namely what's the probability we're on our way out of the recession this time, is thus given by

In other words, there's a 63% chance that new unemployment claims will go back above the recent peak before they finally start to head back down.

The key factor that leads to this pessimistic assessment is the fact that we're conditioning on the knowledge that our current week t is definitely still part of the recession, which seems to me an entirely safe bet. Given that we are in a recession, that fact in itself would lead you to expect to see new unemployment claims go up rather than down (as they did in the vast majority of our 278-week earlier sample). The fact that we've seen the average decline for a couple of weeks now isn't enough to get you to change your mind, if you're convinced that as of right now the recession has not yet ended.

What would it take to get you to change your mind? A 2-week drop of more than 3.4% would bring the probability above 0.5. But you'd never get much more confident than that based on this line of reasoning, because you'd always be factoring in the possibility that we'd see a repeat of the big drops in new unemployment claims that were observed in the 1970 and 1974 recessions, which ended up being followed by even bigger increases. The fact we're conditioning on for these calculations-- that we're currently in a recession-- is by itself a strong enough predictor that future unemployment claims are headed higher that you'd never be completely sure the peak is behind us based on just a few weeks worth of decline.

In other words, you'd never be completely persuaded, if the only variable you had to look at was a few weeks of unemployment claims, that a recession is just about to end.

The latest number might turn out to be a green shoot, no question. But the odds are two to one that it's just another dead twig.

Technorati Tags: employment, recession, macroeconomics, economics

Inflation/Deflation

José Pérez — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 07:38:08 +0000

Over the next decade, the critical element in any investment portfolio will be the correct call regarding inflation or its antipode, deflation. Despite near term deflation risks, the overwhelming consensus view is that “sooner or later” inflation will inevitably return, probably with great momentum. This inflationist view of the world seems to rely on two [...]

Dollar Gains On Euro

Doug Casey — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 18:07:45 +0000

p class="maintextDRP"In the currency market, the dollar rose against the euro. Late Thursday, the euro was trading at $1.3177 vs. $1.3222 on Wednesday. /p p“The U.S. economy is starting to show some tentative signs of stability, while other economies, especially the euro zone, have a number of question marks over them,” said David Watt, senior currency strategist at RBC Capital Markets. “You get this backdrop where it#8217;s still largely not really a bullish backdrop, but an environment where the news is supportive of the U.S. dollar.”/p pBut sifting through the numbers brought little to cheer about yesterday./p pAmong the day’s data, the Commerce Department estimated Thursday that housing starts fell 10.8% in March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 510,000 from 572,000 in#8230;/p

Update on the latest economic indicators

James Hamilton — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 03:16:48 +0000

Some good news, some bad, in the indicators we follow this week.

First, the bad news. Monthly sales for retail and food services, which had been up a bit in January and February, fell 1.1% on a seasonally adjusted basis between February and March, leaving the first quarter 8.8% below 2008:Q1. That's a particularly discouraging development, since given the cyclical behavior of the other components of GDP, it's hard to envision a recovery without an upswing in consumer spending.

Source: FRED.

On the other hand, new claims for unemployment compensation were reported today to have fallen by 53,000 in the week ending April 11, bringing the 4-week average down by 8,500 from what the revised numbers show to have been the recent peak the week before. If April 4 ultimately proves to be the peak for the entire year, and if this recession behaves like each of the previous 6 recessions, we could expect the NBER eventually to declare that the economic recovery began within 6 weeks of today.

Black line: seasonally adjusted weekly initial claims for unemployment insurance, from Department of Labor via Webstract. Blue line: 4-week average of black line. Vertical lines: first week of the first month of a business cycle expansion as subsequently dated by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Calculated Risk notes Goldman Sachs economist Seamus Smyth's estimate that a decline of 20,000 in the four-week average signals we've passed the real peak with probability 0.5, and a decline of 40,000 would give us 90% confidence. CR accordingly cautions not to get excited over the 8,500 drop seen so far.

Excited or no, bad news it's not, and the new claims data release was enough to allow the Aruoba-Diebold-Scott Business Conditions Index to climb up to -2.04% on April 11 from the previous assessment of -2.44% for April 4.

ADS BCI for July 1, 2007 through April 11, 2009, as assessed on April 16, 2009. Data source: Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.

Technorati Tags: employment, recession, macroeconomics, economics

Initial Jobless Claims Falls To 654,000

Daniel Shepard — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 11:00:25 +0000

Thursday April 9, 2009 Navivest The Labor Department today put out its weekly Initial Jobless Claims report, which showed that for the week ending April 4, 2009, 654,000 newly unemployed Americans... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my websi...

Initial unemployment claims and the end of recessions

James Hamilton — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 05:09:40 +0000

Fed Chair Ben Bernanke a few weeks ago said he saw some green shoots of favorable developments in financial markets. Does today's Labor Department report that the seasonally adjusted number of initial claims for unemployment insurance fell by 20,000 workers in the most recent week constitute another?

This story in the Wall Street Journal a few weeks ago also caught my attention:

"There's growing evidence supporting the optimists' view, and I am surprised at that," said Robert J. Gordon, an economist at Northwestern University and a member of the National Bureau of Economic Research committee that is the official arbiter of when recessions begin and end. "I was sort of in the pessimists' camp until I started looking at things."

He points to one indicator in particular with a remarkable track record: the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits. In past recessions, it has hit its peak about four weeks before the economy hit a trough and began to grow again. As of right now, the four-week average of new claims hit its peak of 650,000 in the week ended March 14. Based on the model, "if there's no further rise, we're looking at a trough coming in April or May," he said, which is far earlier than most forecasts currently anticipate.

I was curious to take a look at the pattern that Gordon identified. The graph below plots 4-week averages of the initial unemployment claims going back to 1967, with vertical lines drawn at the first week of the month in which the NBER eventually declared that a recovery from the recession began. Gordon's relation is indeed pretty striking-- in each of the last six recessions, the recovery began within 8 weeks of the peak in new unemployment claims.

The graphs below display the 12 weeks preceding and following the business cycle trough for each of those six recessions in more detail. The blue line shows the 4-week average and the black line the raw weekly data themselves. The last of the 7 panels displays the most recent 13 weeks of data, in which one can see the flattening of the blue curve from which Gordon found some grounds for optimism two weeks ago. The number released last Thursday pushed the average back up to a new 2009 peak. But today's datum brings the 4-week average down, ever so slightly, from the week before, and further reinforces Gordon's tentative impression of a possible flattening. [Bigger version of the picture is available here]

The series plotted above for all previous recessions are the currently known revised numbers. It would be interesting to see how easy the pattern is to recognize in initial data of the kind that we're actually trying to use in the last panel.

Perhaps there's nothing of significance here, as it's all too easy to read too much into the temporary ups and downs that are part of any broader trend. But I agree with Gordon that these numbers bear watching. If subsequent data confirm that the 4-week average of initial claims did indeed reach its peak in the number reported April 2, and if Gordon's pattern holds up, the recovery that many of us had assumed would be quarters or perhaps even years away may instead have started by June.

Technorati Tags: employment, recession, macroeconomics, economics

Thursday’s Market Recap (04/09/09)

Bullish Bankers — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 22:20:17 +0000

The markets were up for the second day in a row, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 3.14% to close at 8083. The Nasdaq and the S&P were both up, closing at 1652.54 and 856.56 respectively. The price on the 10-year was down and it closed with a yield of 2.926%. Contracts for [...]

Stock Markets Move Past Gloom and Doom in Anticipation of the U.S. Economy’s Recovery

Shah Gilani — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 12:30:16 +0000

pThe recent stock market rally may not be a bear-market trap or a “dead cat bounce,” but may in fact be the first signs of dust from an oncoming and unexpected bull stampede./p pIn the face of gloom-and-doom predictions, rapidly rising unemployment, and an imploding economy, the market’s strong rally clearly anticipates a recovery in late 2009./p pIs this just a bunch of bull?/p pWhile everyone seems focused on the economy hemmoraging red ink from the gash in the real-estate market, the broken bones of consumer demand and the unconscious state of banking and credit markets, only the stock market, and yours truly, seems to realize that the patient is being effectively triaged./p pNo, I haven’t lost my senses; I’ve simply regained a sense#8230;/p

Dollar Stable

Doug Casey — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 19:07:28 +0000

pIn the currency market, the dollar gained slightly on the euro. Late Thursday, the euro was trading at $1.352 vs. $1.358 on Wednesday. /p pThursday brought some grim economic numbers./p pAs emMarketwatch/em wrote: “Now that the books are closed on the fourth quarter#8217;s performance, it#8217;s fair to say that the final three months of 2008 will go down as the worst quarter for the U.S. economy since the 1930s.”/p pThe Commerce Department reported revised fourth quarter GDP figures yesterday, showing that output fell at a 6.3% annualized rate. That’s the biggest drop since 1982 and the third worst gross domestic product figure in the past 50 years.”/p pIn addition, real gross domestic income fell even faster than GDP, sinking at a 7.6% annual pace in#8230;/p

Dollar Continues To Fall

Doug Casey — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 19:04:09 +0000

p class="maintextDRP"In the currency market, the dollar continued to fall against the euro and most other world currencies. Late Thursday, the euro was trading at $1.3671 vs. $1.3485 on Wednesday. /p pThe dollar was sharply lower against other major currencies Thursday in the wake of the U.S. Federal Reserve#8217;s decision to aggressively pump liquidity into the financial system, but it was above session lows in late trading according to a emMarketWatch/em report./p p#8220;The aggressive U.S. dollar sell-off came to an end following a last hurrah in early North American trading. Euro/dollar had rallied almost 5% in less than 24 hours following the Fed#8217;s decision to embark on aggressive quantitative easing,#8221; said Matthew Strauss, senior currency strategist at RBC Capital Markets./p pThe dollar had plunged Wednesday,#8230;/p

Stocks Fall On Inflation Concern

Daniel Shepard — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 04:10:07 +0000

Thursday March 19, 2009 Navivest Traders took profit today sending the stock market lower, in a financial led decline, partly on concern that the Federal Reserve is dumping too much money into the economy, which could result in hyperinflation. This a day after stocks rallied on news that the government will spend $1.25 trillion this year buying [...]div id='wikinvestWireDiv659'!--Wikinvest API HTML Response-- !--metadata generated='Thu, 19 Mar 2009 21:11:08 -0700'-- div class='wikinvestWireContainer' wikinvestWirePageId='274013' wikinvestWirePartnerName='Navivest' span class='wikinvestWireHeader'More on this topic/span span class='wikinvestWireWhatsThis' a href='http://www.wikinvest.com/blogger/wikinvest_wire' target='_blank'(What#39;s this?)/a /span div class='wikinvestWireItemList' !--Wikinvest Wire Related Item--div class='wikinvestWireItem' style='line-height:1.3em; margin:0pt;' a target='_blank' class='wikinvestWireItemLink' wikinvestWirePageId='271902' href='http://www.moneymorning.com/2009/03/18/feds-inflation' onclick='Wikinvest.Wire.BloggerTracker.trackUrlClick( 274013, 271902 );' Inflation Gently Rises in February, Offering Analysts a Sign the Economy Isn’t Collapsing/a span class='wikinvestWireItemMetadata' (Money Morning, 3/18/09) /span /div!--/Wikinvest Wire Related Item-- !--Wikinvest Wire Related Item--div class='wikinvestWireItem' style='line-height:1.3em; margin:0pt;' a target='_blank' class='wikinvestWireItemLink' wikinvestWirePageId='255011' href='http://www.moneymorning.com/2009/03/12/inflation-4' onclick='Wikinvest.Wire.BloggerTracker.trackUrlClick( 274013, 255011 );' Two Ways to Protect Yourself When the Inflation Alarms Return/a span class='wikinvestWireItemMetadata' (Money Morning, 3/12/09) /span /div!--/Wikinvest Wire Related Item-- !--Wikinvest Wire Related Item--div class='wikinvestWireItem' style='line-height:1.3em; margin:0pt;' a target='_blank' class='wikinvestWireItemLink' wikinvestWirePageId='273685' href='http://www.contrarianprofits.com/articles/inflation-gently-rises-in-february-offering-analysts-a-sign-the-economy-isn%E2%80%99t-collapsing/15109' onclick='Wikinvest.Wire.BloggerTracker.trackUrlClick( 274013, 273685 );' Inflation Gently Rises in February, Offering Analysts a Sign the Economy Isn’t Collapsing/a span class='wikinvestWireItemMetadata' (Contrarian Profits, 3/19/09) /span /div!--/Wikinvest Wire Related Item-- /div span class='wikinvestWireFooter' Read more on a target='_blank' class='wikinvestWireWikinvestItemLink' wikinvestWirePageId='121410' href='http://www.wikinvest.com/wiki/Inflation' wikinvesttrackingurl='http://www.wikinvest.com/wiki/Inflation' onclick='Wikinvest.Wire.BloggerTracker.trackUrlClick( 274013, 121410 );'Inflation/a at a href='http://www.wikinvest.com' target='_blank'Wikinvest/a /span /div !--/Wikinvest API HTML Response--/div

Fed Move Slaughters Dollar

Doug Casey — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 19:16:31 +0000

p class="maintextDRP"In the currency market, the dollar plummeted against the euro after the Fed spoke. Late Wednesday, the euro was trading at $1.3485 vs. $1.3013 on Tuesday. /p pThe buck was obviously hammered by traders who didn’t care for the Fed’s monetization move./p pIt “was taken to the woodshed and beaten like a dog. And after a short rest, beaten like a dog again,” wrote David Watt, senior currency strategist at RBC Capital Markets. “Market sentiment on the Fed#8217;s maneuver was crystal clear.”/p pemMarketwatch.com/em wrote of the decision that, “Quantitative monetary easing policy carries out monetary easing by using money supply rather than interest rates as its main tool. The benefit of this policy is that more funds can be supplied, even after official rates#8230;/p

Wall Street Reacts to Unemployment Report; Pink Slips a Common Conversation Starter

QualityStocks — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 18:20:53 +0000

It’s common for casual conversation to turn to the economy, and it’s even more common for talk of who got laid off and how long ago. It’s a tiresome conversation reflecting a stressful economic environment that has spurred a wealth of “How NOT to get Laid Off,” articles and networking groups. And even though jobless [...]

Dollar Marginally Higher

Doug Casey — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 17:46:50 +0000

p class="maintextDRP"In the currency market, the dollar edged slightly higher against the euro. Late Tuesday, the euro was trading at $1.3013 vs. $1.3022 on Monday. /p pIn the day’s big number, the Commerce Department reported that U.S. housing starts surged 22% in February, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 583,000. That marked the largest percentage gain in 19 years and was the first increase in eight months in the sector./p pThat tiny ray of light brought out the optimists. “The 22% rise in starts is very impressive and leaves open the possibility of a bottom in the housing market,” wrote Kathy Lien, of GFT in New York./p pSeparately, the Labor Department said the producer price index rose 0.1% in February, driven by a#8230;/p

The Stock Market Week In Review

Daniel Shepard — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 21:00:33 +0000

Friday March 6, 2009 Navivest The stock market ended another disastrous week mixed, with the Dow and the S#38;P 500 managing to eek out gains for the day, of 0.49% and 0.12% respectively. NASDAQ closed the Friday session with a small loss of 0.44%. From the Friday February 27 close, the Dow went from 7062.93 to 6626.94, for [...]

Crude Falls Down

Doug Casey — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 19:06:41 +0000

pIn the energy market on Wednesday, crude for April delivery fell $1.77 to close at $43.61/barrel. April reformulated gasoline finished at $1.3127/gallon./p pOil fell as investors anticipate more job losses in the U.S., the world’s biggest oil consumer./p pThe Labor Department is expected to report today the biggest nonfarm payroll loss in nearly six decades. Also adding to the downward pressure on oil, the U.S. dollar rose against the euro and the British pound after interest rate cuts in Europe./p p#8220;A rising dollar as a consequence of interest rate cuts in Europe and anticipation of a poor jobs report tomorrow should keep crude prices under pressure today and tomorrow,#8221; wrote Michael Fitzpatrick, an analyst at MF Global (NYSE:a href="http://www.google.com/finance?q=MF"MF/a)./p pThe number of workers filing for#8230;/p

Oil Rises Above $44 before US Jobs Data

Contrarian Profits — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 12:45:29 +0000

pOil rose above $44 a barrel on Friday, after sinking 4 percent in the previous session, gaining support from a weaker dollar and a meeting of OPEC later this month. /p p The market was also supported by China#8217;s optimism that its domestic economy was recovering and official promises of more swift stimulus action when required. China is the world#8217;s second-largest oil consumer. /p p U.S. crude was up 98 cents at $44.57 a barrel by 1205 GMT after rising as high as $44.76, while London Brent crude advanced 56 cents to $44.20 a barrel. /p p Brent has lost its rare premium to U.S. crude because of a decline in U.S. inventories. High U.S. stocks, particularly at the Cushing oil hub, had been keeping the#8230;/p

March 6: The Best ETF Articles In The Media

IndexUniverse Staff — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 10:00:00 +0000

Bonds Rally In Anticipation Of Friday's Jobs Report

Treasuries rallied on Thursday ahead of today's government report that a poll of economists predicts will show nearly 650,000 jobs lost in February. That would be the worst such Labor Department report in 60 years, according to the Reuters story.

You can read it here.

USO Now Controls Fifth Of Most Traded Oil Futures Contracts

In this Wall Street Journal piece, the growth of the U.S. Oil Fund (NYSE: USO) and its impact on trading in volatile energy markets is reviewed.

You can read the story here.

Sector Bets Can Be Risky

That's the theme of Ian Salisbury's latest column for Dow Jones Newswires. You can read the story here.

Indexing Wins In 2008

Sam Mamudi of MarketWatch notes that index funds beat their active rivals last year.

Tapping into Morningstar's database, he reports that the average actively managed mutual fund lost 40.5% and the average index mutual fund 39.1% in 2008.

You can read the story here.

Counter-Trend Trading Strategies

At Investor's Business Daily, reporter Trang Ho takes a look at trading strategies by some pros in the wake of the current downward trending market.

You can read the story here.

Dollar Sinks Against The Euro

Doug Casey — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 19:21:27 +0000

p class="maintextDRP"In the currency market, the dollar sunk against the euro. Late Wednesday, the euro was trading at $1.2651 vs. $1.2560 on Tuesday. /p pThe dollar declined against most major currencies yesterday, losing ground as equity markets shifted to the black./p pIn economic news, it appears investors were encouraged by details of a government program designed to help as many as 9 million borrowers stay in their homes through refinanced mortgages or loans that are modified to lower monthly payments, as stocks broke a five-day losing streak./p p“Virtually everyone was expecting some sort of a bounce, we just didn’t know exactly when that would occur,” said Randy Frederick, director of trading and derivatives at Charles Schwab. “You can’t go down forever.”/p pThat’s a pretty stupid#8230;/p

Dollar Falls Slightly Against The Euro

Doug Casey — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 18:09:22 +0000

p class="maintextDRP"In the currency market, the dollar lost ground against the euro. Late Thursday, the euro was trading at $1.2735 vs. $1.2718 on Wednesday. /p pIn economic news Thursday, the Labor Department reported that first-time applications for state unemployment benefits for the week ended Feb. 21 rose 36,000 to a seasonally adjusted 667,000./p pThe level of initial claims now stands at its highest since October 1982 – up 86% from the same period in the prior year. The four-week average of new claims, which measures the underlying trend, rose 19,000 to 639,000 – also the highest level since October 1982./p p#8220;The trend in claims is sharply upwards, reflecting the depth of the recession, and we see no reason for it to peak anytime soon,#8221;#8230;/p

Global Investment News Briefs Friday, February 27, 2009

Contrarian Profits — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 16:10:34 +0000

pJPMorgan Cuts 2,800 WaMu Jobs; GM Post $30-Billion Loss; Hong Kong Exports Sink; IGM Retains 2009 Outlook; Jobless Claims Spike; Oil Rises for Second Day in a Row/p ul type="disc" listrongJPMorgan Chase #38; Co. /strong(a href="http://www.google.com/finance?q=jpm" target="_blank"JPM/a) will eliminate 2,800 jobs at Washington Mutual through attrition, strongemBloomberg /em/strongreported. In December, the company slashed 9,200 jobs at WaMu, which it bought for $1.9 billion last year./li /ul ul type="disc" listrongGeneral Motors Corp. /strong(a href="http://www.google.com/finance?q=gm" target="_blank"GM/a) posted a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSN2653343220090226" target="_blank"a loss of almost $31 billion in the fourth quarter/a, and said its auditors will likely doubt its viability. The company burned through $5 billion during the quarter, and warned that its pension plans were underfunded by $12.4 billion, strongemReuters /em/strongreported./li /ul ul type="disc" liHong Kong’s January exports sunk 21.8% from a year earlier, the biggest decline in 50 years.#8230;/li/ul

Global Investment News Briefs Friday, February 27, 2009

Contrarian Profits — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 16:10:34 +0000

Dollar Declines Against Euro

Doug Casey — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 19:22:39 +0000

pIn the currency market, the dollar slid against the euro. Late Thursday, the euro was trading at $1.2668 vs. $1.255 on Wednesday. /p p“Traders have poured back into the euro today on news that Germany will spend more of its Treasury to support a union to which it is anchored,” wrote Jack Crooks, of Black Swan Capital./p pGermany#8217;s Cabinet on Wednesday approved legislation that would allow the forced nationalization of banks as a last resort. And Chancellor Angela Merkel said yesterday that Germany is willing to shore up the International Monetary Fund if needed./p pMerkel added that the euro zone “is strong and has proven its worth in the crisis.”/p p“There#8217;s a sense perhaps that Europe is going to take an activist role, or#8230;/p

Global Investment News Briefs Friday, February 20th, 2009

Contrarian Profits — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 15:00:47 +0000

pU.S. Sues UBS; Unemployment Highest Since 1967; BoA Criticizes Housing Plan; Oil Soars Over $39; HP Lowers Forecast; Brazilian Jetmaker Cuts 20% of Workforce/p ul type="disc" liThe U.S. government yesterday (Thursday) sued strongUBS AG/strong (a href="http://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE:UBS"UBS/a) to force Switzerland’s largest bank to release the identities of 52,000 Americans who allegedly hid their secret Swiss accounts from U.S. tax authorities, strongemBloomberg/em/strong reported. U.S. customers a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087#38;sid=aHxdrBYdaJD4#38;refer=home"failed to report income earned and pay U.S. taxes/a on accounts that held about $14.8 billion in assets during this decade, according to the court filing. The lawsuit came a day after UBS agreed to pay $780 million and disclose the names of about 250 account holders to avoid U.S. charges that it helped thousands of wealthy Americans evade taxes./li /ul ul type="disc" liThe number of U.S. workers#8230;/li/ul

Initial Claims Filings Flat At 627,000

Daniel Shepard — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 15:29:52 +0000

Thursday February 19, 2009 Navivest According to the Department of Labor, the number of people filing for state unemployment benefits for the week ending February 14, 2008, was 627,000. This was flat against the prior week, when the number was also 627,000. The four-week moving average, which aims to smooth out weekly anomalies, rose to 619,000, a gain [...]

Aspire Misery Index for the Week Ended February 13, 2009

Small Cap Pulse — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 20:39:00 +0000

January 13 - We have to say that the pace of dour news slowed a bit this week, a trend that we are hopeful will continue. However, there is still much misery out there, and expectations are that the underlying fundamentals of the U.S. economy will continue to erode as businesses circle the wagons around their cash positions and remaining available credit, which will result in more jobs lost. Our expectations for this recession are for it to run pretty deep in light of the fact that there is so much consumer infrastructure built in the U.S. which just needs to be shut down as consumers, we hope, begin finding more of a balance and start saving. Savings rates as a percentage of disposable income have fallen in recent years to 0.4% and when consumer credit gets factored in, it turns negative. This was an unsustainable pace. We are hopeful that Washington is learning the lessons and will begin advocating a more balanced approach for the nation. Obamarsquo;s stimulus plan seems to get it, because if consumers, who represent more than 70% of GDP arenrsquo;t going to be the ones that get economy kick-started again, government investments in infrastructure just may. And at least in this case this is a move towards investments in asset bases like our energy infrastructure, which just may create more jobs down the road. middot;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; Consumer Confidence ndash; The Michigan Consumer Confidence Survey said its confidence rating slid to 56.2 in February from 61.2 in January. The record low was set in May, 1980 at 51.7.nbsp;nbsp; middot;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; Job Cuts ndash; KV Pharmaceutical (700 jobs), Beazer Homes (300 jobs), GM (150 jobs and then announced another 10,000 jobs for the year ndash; so, with 3,400 U.S. jobs), FedEx (900 jobs), InterContinental Exchange (40 to 55 jobs), Wal-Mart (700-800 jobs), Zenith National (100 jobs), Sensata (100 jobs), Alcon (260 jobs), Greenbriar (150 jobs), Toro (100 more jobs), Bryan Cave (laying off 58 lawyers and 76 staff), TRW Automotive (45 jobs), BlueScope (53 jobs),nbsp;nbsp; middot;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; Weekly Jobless Claims ndash; The Labor Department reported that 623,000 initial claims were filed last week, higher than expectations of 610,000. Continuing claims rose to 4.81 million from 4.78 million ndash; the highest level since records began back in 1967.nbsp;nbsp; middot;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; Samp;P Performance ndash; Samp;P sales fell 9.8% in the October-December period and on average, companies lost $10.44 per share.nbsp;nbsp; middot;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; Business Inventories ndash; Business inventories fell by 1.3%, more than the 0.9% expected.nbsp;nbsp; middot;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; Ratings Downgrades ndash; Moodyrsquo;s cut the oilfield services sector, Moodyrsquo;s cut Cisco, Samp;P cut Hartford Financial, Samp;P cut Starbucks, Moodyrsquo;s cut CNA, Samp;P cut Freescale Semi, Samp;P cut Unisys, Samp;P cut Estee Lauder, Samp;P cut Cytec, Fitch cut Textron, Moodyrsquo;s cut Ameristar, Moodyrsquo;s cut FelCor, Fitch and Moodyrsquo;s cut Alcoa,nbsp;nbsp; middot;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; Chapter 11 ndash; Crescent Oil, Samp;K Famous Brands, Charter Communications, Midway Games, Aleris, Pliant Corp.nbsp;nbsp; middot;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; Bank Closings ndash; Regulators closed Sherman County Bank in Nebraska, Riverside Bank of the Gulf Coast in Florida, and Corn Belt Bank and Trust Co. in Illinois, bringing the number of failures so far this year to twelve. Twenty-five banks failed last year.nbsp;nbsp; middot;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; Housing Industry ndash; The National Association of Realtors said the median sales prices of homes declined in 134 out of 153 metropolitan areas in the Q4, compared with the Q4, 2007. The nationwide median home sales price was $180,100, down 12% Y/Y. Hawaiirsquo;s foreclosure rate in January rose 174% Y/Y.nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; middot;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; Publishing Industry ndash; The Audit Bureau of Circulations said that combined single-copy magazine sales at newsstands and other retail outlets are down 11% for the second half of 2007. Overall circulation was basically flat on 2008 over 2007.nbsp;nbsp; middot;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; Retail Sales ndash; The Commerce Department said that retail sales grew 1% in January. Expectations were for a 0.8% decline.nbsp;nbsp; middot;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; Trade Deficit ndash; The Commerce Department said the trade deficit in December fell 4% to $39.9 billion, from $41.6 billion in November. For the year, the deficit contracted by 3.3% to $677.1 billion. pa href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/smallcappulse/feed?a=9KhKUr"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/smallcappulse/feed?i=9KhKUr" border="0"/img/a/p

Dollar Falls vs. Euro

Doug Casey — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 18:25:52 +0000

pIn the currency market, the dollar sank against the euro. Late Friday, the euro was trading at $1.2932 vs. $1.2861 on Thursday. /p pYesterday came the grim jobs figures everyone was expecting. The Labor Department reported that non-farm payrolls fell by a seasonally adjusted 598,000 in January after a revised loss of 577,000 in December. That marked the largest payroll loss since December 1974./p pAt the same time, the unemployment rate soared to 7.6%, compared with 7.2% in December. That was even worse than already-pessimistic economists’ expectations for a rise to 7.5%, and is the highest unemployment rate since September 1992./p p“These numbers are dreadful but does it matter?” asked Alan Ruskin of RBS Greenwich Capital. “No,” he wrote. “All the prior labor#8230;/p

The Human Face Behind This Economic Crisis

Martin D. Weiss, Ph.D. — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 14:37:05 +0000

The hard figures released by the Labor Department last Friday, may look cold and impersonal. And Wall Street may be able to thumb its noses at it for a day or two. But the half-million-plus stories of ...

Dollar/Euro Little Changed

Doug Casey — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 18:00:07 +0000

p class="maintextDRP"In the currency market, the dollar was little changed against the euro. Late Thursday, the euro was trading at $1.2861 vs. $1.2846 on Wednesday. /p pThe day’s major number was the Labor Department report that new claims for state unemployment benefits surged 35,000 to a seasonally adjusted 626,000 in the week ended January 31. That’s the highest level in 26 years./p pContinuing jobless claims, a more smoothed-out figure, rose by 20,000 in the week ended January 24, to a seasonally adjusted 4.79 million, the most since the government#8217;s record-keeping began in 1967./p pAll markets are girding for today’s job loss numbers, which are expected by economists’ consensus to top 500,000 for the third straight month./p pSterling rallied against both the euro and the dollar#8230;/p

Aspire Misery Index for the Week Ended January 30, 2009 (updated Friday a.m. Jan. 30)

Small Cap Pulse — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 22:57:00 +0000

Aspire Misery Index for the Week Ended, January 30, 2009 Another week chalked with downbeat earnings performance, profit warnings, and further indications of economic erosion here in the U.S., and abroad is almost behind us, and now we can start focusing on the Super Bowl. Here is a list of bullets to consider when setting expectations for stock, portfolio and indices performance (not 100% comprehensive but a pretty good gauge of this weekrsquo;s lowlights in the U.S. economy): GDP ndash; The U.S. economy contracted by 3.8% in the Q4, the most since 1982. The good news is that economists were expecting the number to come in at 5.4%. For 2008, GDP growth was 1.8%. Consumer Spending ndash; dropped by 3.5% last quarter following a 3.8% in the prior quarter. Durable Goods ndash; durable goods orders fell for the fifth straight month in December by 2.6%. Economists had expected a 2% decline. Orders fell 5.7% for the year, the second biggest decline on record. Retail Industry ndash; The National Retail Federation released a forecast for retailers in 2009 to record a 0.5% drop in revenue. Sales for the first half of 2009 are expected to decline by 2.5%, then a 1.1% decline in Q3 and a 3.6% increase in Q4. Auto Industry ndash; The National Association of Auto Dealers expects sales of at least 12.7 million vehicles in the U.S. this year. Mitsubishi extended the downtime at its Illinois factory for an extra five weeks. A irline Industry ndash; The International Air Transport Association said the industry lost $5 billion in 2008 on lower traffic.nbsp;nbsp; Mobile Phone Industry - Global mobile phone market will shrink 9% in 2009, its first decline since 2001 and with the first half set to be especially grim, Strategy Analytics said. Job Cuts ndash; Caterpillar (20,000 jobs), Sprint Nextel (8,000 jobs), Deere (700 jobs), Home Depot (7,000 jobs), GM (2,000 jobs), Wyeth (8,000 jobs ndash; on consolidation from Pfizer purchase), Brooks Automation (350 jobs, or 20% of workforce), Corning (3,500 jobs), Quiksilver (200 jobs), Weyerhauser (221 jobs), STM Microelectronics (4,500 jobs), IBM (estimated 4,000 jobs), Target (1,000 headquarters jobs),nbsp; Volvo (laying off 650 at Virginia plant), JL French Automotive Castings (300 jobs), Starbucks (7,000 more jobs), Citrix (about 462 jobs), Boeing (10,000 jobs), Jabil Circuit (3,000 jobs), AOL (700 jobs), nbsp;Wet Seal (41 jobs), Readerrsquo;s Digest (about 280 jobs), Revel (lays off 400), Pacific Sunwear (57 jobs), Analogic (140 jobs), Kodak (3,500 to 4,500 jobs), Black amp; Decker (1,200 jobs), Teradyne (14% of workforce), Bon-Ton (1,150 jobs), Cessna (2,000 jobs), AstraZeneca (another 6,000 jobs), New Jersey hospital system (cutting 180 jobs), Caterpillar (added 2,100 more jobs to its already announced 20,000 jobs), Unemployment ndash; The Conference Board said unemployment could rise to 9%. Nevadarsquo;s jobless rate reached 9.1% in December. Unemployment in Kansas rose to 4.9% in December from 4% the year prior. Coloradorsquo;s unemployment rate in December hit 6.1%. South Carolinarsquo;s unemployment rate rose to 9.5%. Indianarsquo;s unemployment rate rose to 8.2% in December. Arkansasrsquo; unemployment rate rose to 6.2% in December. Mainersquo;s unemployment rate rose to 7% in December. Montanarsquo;s unemployment rate rose to 5.4% in December. West Virginiarsquo;s jobless rate is expected to increase to between 8.7% and 9.5% by the last quarter of 2009. The Labor Department reported that weekly jobless claims rose to 588,000 while the continuing claims rose to an all-time high of almost 4.8 million. Nebraska unemployment rose to 4% in December. nbsp; Profit Warnings ndash; Caterpillar, Applied Industrial Tech, Eaton, Max Capital Group, Moog, McGraw Hill, Quanex, Lexmark, Jacobs Engineering, U.S. Steel, AK Steel, Yahoo, Total Systems, Rayonier, ATamp;T, McCormick, Tyco, Norsk Hyrdo, Cirrus Logic, Baker Hughes, Canon, Qualcomm, Textron, Oshkosh, NEC, Honda, Hitachi, Credit Ratings ndash; Fitch lowered Johnson Control ratings, Moodyrsquo;s downgraded Sealy, Samp;P cut Ryder System, Samp;P and Moodyrsquo;s cut Blythrsquo;s ratings, Samp;P cut rates on PPL Corp and PPL Electric, Samp;P cut ratings on SunTrust Banks, Samp;P cuts Hexion, Moodyrsquo;s cuts Intrsquo;l Game Technology, Samp;P cut Golden Nugget, Chapter 11 ndash; Hartmarx (Obamarsquo;s suit maker), Smurfit-Stone, Closing the Doors ndash; Weyerhauser is closing two mills in southwestern Washington, Starbucks is closing 300 stores, Venture Capital ndash; Investments in Q4 fell by 33% Y/Y to $5.4 billion.nbsp; Investment into biotech and medical device companies fell 31% Y/Y to $1.6 billion. Investment into software companies fell by 28% Y/Y to $1 billion. The only sector bucking the trend was alternative energy and clean tech, which raised $908.2 million in the Q4, up 26% over the same period last year. For the full year, VC invested $28.3 billion, down 8% Y/Y. State Budgets ndash; Nevadarsquo;s unemployment rate rose to 9.1% in December; Home Sales ndash; Existing home sales rose 6.5% in December while the median home sales price fell 15.3% Y/Y to $175,400. For 2008, homes sales were down 13% TO 4.9 million homes, the lowest level since 1997. The National Association of Realtors said southern existing home sales fell almost 7% in December on a Y/Y basis, while the median sales price fell 8% to $158,600; existing home sales in the Midwest fell almost 5% in December on a Y/Y basis and the media sale price declined to $140,800. The Commerce Department reported new homes fell 14.7% in December to the slowest pace since 1963. The median price of new homes sold in December was $206,500, a decline of 9.3% Y/Y. Home Prices - Samp;P Case/Shiller index reported that home prices in 20 U.S. cities declined by 18.2% in November on a Y/Y basis. Ken Rose, UC Berkeley Economist projected home prices to slide 6% in 2009. Leading Indicators ndash; The Conference Boardrsquo;s monthly forecast of economic activity increased 0.3% in December. Stock Dividends ndash; the AP reported that dividends are being cut at the fastest pace in at least 50 years. Colleges ndash; universities are cutting budgets, and college endowments are down 3% in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2008, and in the first five months of FY2009, endowments are down 23% (source: TIAA-CREF and NACUBO). Tourism ndash; The U.N. World Tourism Organization said global tourism could decline by up to 2% in 2009. Hawaiirsquo;s tourism industry saw a 16.5% decline in December, and 10.8% for the year. pa href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/smallcappulse/feed?a=13Fjnk"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/smallcappulse/feed?i=13Fjnk" border="0"/img/a/p

Stock Market News & Stocks to Watch from StraightStocks » Department of Labor

11-18-09 Daily Small Cap Market News and Stock Highlights from SmallCapVoice.com

Initial Jobless Claims Continue Decline, 502K Figure Beats Expectations

11-4-09 Daily Small Cap Market News and Stock Highlights from SmallCapVoice.com

US Labor Market Shows Continuing Signs of Improvement

Stock Market News for October 9, 2009 – Market News

Initial Jobless Claims Decline to January Levels

Oil Prices Fall on News of Rising Unemployment

ADP: 254,000 Private-Sector Jobs Lost – Analyst Blog

Market Braces for Tidal Wave of Economic Data

Market Wanes on News of Falling Home Sales and Oil Prices

Catching Up With Richard Duncan…

Finance Jobs Going Where the Growth Is – Asia

Oil Steady at $68

Dr Stock pick End of Day August 20,2009 CRWE , CVAT , VSYM , CSRH , USPS , HRAL ,AQNM , PWRM

Wal-Mart Sales Decline as Consumers Trim Retail Spending

Budget Insanity, FOMC Down-Low, Oil Sands Investing and More!

Stock Market News for August 10, 2009 – Market News

Stock Market News for August 7, 2009 – Market News

Dr Stock Pick End of Day August 6, 2009 AQNM, CVAT, CRWE, USPS, CSRH, PWRM

Stock Market News for August 5, 2009 – Market News

Stock Market News for July 31, 2009 – Market News

Dollar Continues to Slide

The Real Economy is Getting Worse

China Booms, The CIT Crisis, A Bizarre Commodity Worth Stockpiling, Vancouver and More!

Risk Aversion Returns

Oil Slips as Demand Worries Linger

Crude Oil Gains

Dollar Falls

Frightened Investors Move Back into US Treasuries

Offshore Providers to Expand Onsite Presence

Stock Market News for July 2, 2009 – Market News

Stock Market News for July 1, 2009 – Market News

Dollar Little Changed

Dollar Backs Off

The Friedman Effect: Is Another Bear Market Around the Corner?

Thursday’s Market Recap (06/18/09)

Drop in Continuing Unemployment Claims Could Signal Onset of Recovery

Empower the Fed? Details of Obama’s New Plan, Inflation Forecast, Gold Advice and More!

Stock Market News for June 19, 2009 – Market News

Dollar Declines

Do you see what I see?

Source: FRED.

National average U.S. gasoline retail price. Source: NewJerseyGasPrices.com.

Seasonally adjusted weekly new claims for unemployment insurance (black line) and 4-week average (blue line) so far this year.

Seasonally adjusted index of aggregate weekly hours (CES0500000034), from BLS.

Source: Edward Hugh.

Source: Macro Man.

Prices of assorted commodities normalized at March 17, 2009 = 100. Data source: WSJ commodity cash prices, via Webstract.

Prices Continue to Rise

Dollar Firms

Obama: “A Long Way to Go to Recovery”

Stock Market News for June 8, 2009 – Market News

Not a robust recovery

Black line: 4-week average of seasonally adjusted weekly initial claims for unemployment insurance, from Department of Labor via Webstract. Shaded areas correspond to recessions as judged by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Average cumulative change in 100 times the natural log of real GDP or its respective component beginning from the business cycle peak for the 10 recessions between 1947 and 2001. Horizontal axis denotes quarters after the peak.

Light vehicles sold in the United States. Data source: Wardsauto.com

Source: Calculated Risk.

Reuters/Michigan index of consumer sentiment. Data source: FRED and MarketWatch.

Household debt as a fraction of GDP. Data source: Federal Reserve Board Flow of Funds, Table L2.

National average U.S. gasoline retail price. Source: NewJerseyGasPrices.com.

Has the Unemployment Scene Bottomed?

Big, Positive Surprise in Jobs Data – Analyst Blog

Gold and silver fall as jobs data lessen metals’ appeal (GLD, SLV)

Dollar Shifts Gears

Dollar Declines

You Are Being Robbed!

Dollar Cratering

A National “Stress Test”

Thursday’s Market Recap (05/21/09)

Dollar Rallies Strongly Against Euro

Costs Up, Sales Down – A Formula for Retail Disaster

Dollar Slightly Lower

Where’s my recovery, dude?

Black line: 4-week average of seasonally adjusted weekly initial claims for unemployment insurance, from Department of Labor via Webstract. Shaded areas correspond to recessions as judged by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Black line: seasonally adjusted weekly new claims for unemployment insurance from January 1 through May 14, 2009. Blue line: 4-week average.

Source: FRED.

Dollar Rises Against Euro

Wall St Higher as Tech, Defensive Sectors Boost

Dollar Whacked