With the Rally Nearly Over the Germans are Buying Gold.

The Dow fell another 107 points yesterday. Oil held steady at $70. The dollar fell to $1.38. And gold rose $4 to 932.

What if the rally is over? Could be… It began on 9 March. That makes it more than 3 months old. Most likely, it will continue through the summer. But who knows?

The important thing to remember is this: there can be no major, sustained bull market without one of two things happening.

Either… the mistakes of the Bubble Epoque must be cleared away… allowing for a new era of genuine growth and real prosperity. At best, this would take a few years to achieve. Just imagine how long it will take to restructure GM into a profit-making business again. Just imagine how long it will take consumers to pay down their debts so they can begin to spend again. Just

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pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/ia2JQl69Udr53U14D2pLw5yMcPQ/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/ia2JQl69Udr53U14D2pLw5yMcPQ/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pThe good news for jobs this week is that a major study now shows that corporations have either finished their layoffs for now or have significantly curbed those actions.br /br /"The decline in job cuts last month offers some hope that January was the peak and we will now see layoffs begin to fall or at least stabilize," said John Challenger, chief executive officer of Challenger Gray amp; Christmas the authors of the study.br /br /According to the report, major U.S. companies surveyed in the study announced only 186,350 job reductions in February, down significantly from January when the cuts totaled 241,749.br /br /On Thursday all eyes will be on a href="http://bloomberg.econoday.com/byshoweventfull.asp?fid=437656amp;cust=bloombergamp;year=2009"initial claims for unemployment/a. Following the Challenger, Gray amp; Christmas report it will likely also show those initial claims falling.br /br /If so, we may just be reaching an important tipping point. You ...

Job losses spiked in October according to two key employment reports released yesterday (Wednesday).  The rate of unemployment has risen steadily over the past year but job losses expanded in both size and scope in October and will likely continue to accelerate well into 2009, further exacerbating an already potent economic downturn.

Private U.S. companies cut an estimated 157,000 jobs in October, the largest decline in nearly six years, ADP Employer Services said yesterday (Wednesday). Separately, outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. said job cut announcements by U.S. employers soared to 112,884 in October – a 79% increase from last year.

“We are starting to see more recession-like declines in employment,” said Sal Guatieri, a senior economist at BMO Capital Markets, told Bloomberg News. “The loss of jobs means consumers will continue to retrench in the next couple of quarters.”

The ADP

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