By just about any measure, this has been the worst recession since the Great Depression. While I think we are coming out of it, the employment market is the last thing to turn, particularly if we follow the pattern of the last two recessions and their aftermath. We have seen a steady pattern of lower job losses since January, when we hemorrhaged over 700,000 jobs in that single month. August’s loss of 216,000 is sure an improvement over that, and is even a big improvement over the 276,000 lost in July, which in turn was a huge improvement over the 463,000 lost in June. It is, however, not good enough -- the economy needs to add jobs, not just avoid losing them. Every year, the workforce grows by a little over a million, so just to stay even we should be adding about 100,000 a month. To recoup the 6.9 million ...

For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – August 28, 2009 – Zacks Equity Research highlights Acergy (ACGY) as the Bull of the Day and Loews Corporation (L) the Bear of the Day. In addition, Zacks Equity Research provides analysis on Bank of America (BAC), Wal-Mart (WMT) and Macy's (M).

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

Here is a synopsis of all five stocks:

Bull of the Day:

Acergy (ACGY) posted better-than-expected second quarter 2009 results, though revenue and backlog slipped, reflecting the tentative operating environment stemming from commodity price and credit market overhang.

With a still healthy backlog, significant cash balances and no near-term refinancing requirements, Acergy remains comfortable to weather the challenging business environment.

Our continued Outperform recommendation on Acergy ADRs also reflects the company's strong leverage to the still very favorable outlook for deepwater oilfield activities

...

Initial claims for unemployment came in at 570,000, a drop of 10,000 from last week's revised figure. However, last week was revised up by 4,000, so the net improvement was only 6,000 from where we thought we were. The four-week moving average dipped by 4,750 to 566,250. New claims peaked at 92,500, higher than back in April, but recently the rate of decline has slowed. As the chart below (from http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/) shows, recessions prior to the 1990 downturn tended to to come down fast and in a straight line. The last two recessionary episodes had a quick initial decline, but then remained high for an extended period of time. I think we are transitioning into that phase. Being stuck at this level means that the economy is still losing jobs, but just not at the rate it was at the beginning of the year. At the same time, other economic indicators -- ...

New claims for unemployment insurance rose last week to 584,000 -- an increase of 25,000. However, the 4-week moving average of this volatile series fell to 559,000, a decline of 8,250. As the chart below (from http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/) shows, the 4-week average looks to be well past its peak both in terms of time (16 weeks) and level (almost 100,000 below peak levels). This is significant in that it makes it increasingly unlikely that April was a false peak. Also, note the relationship of past peaks to the blue recession bars. Historically, peaks in the 4-week average of new claims have come close to or at the end of recessions. As the experience of the last two recessions shows, though, it is not always a smooth decline, and the 4-week average can rise again, but as long as it doesn’t hit a new high for the cycle, ...