Stocks rise on GE upgrade despite weak employment data

U.S. stocks rose on Friday as investors took heart after the government said monthly payroll losses slowed, even as unemployment rose above 10 percent.

General Electric Co shares jumped more than 5 percent after a brokerage upgrade, and helped lead the industrial sector higher.

The market had opened lower after data showed the unemployment rate topped the psychologically key 10 percent level and reached the highest point since April 1983.

U.S. employers cut 190,000 jobs in October and unemployment hit its highest level since 1983. Despite the disturbing headline unemployment number, payroll losses continued to decline, which some investors saw as a mild positive as the hourly work week remained static.

The Dow Jones industrial average was up 17.84 points, or 0.18 percent, at 10,023.80. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rose 2.30 points, or 0.22 percent, at 1,068.93. The Nasdaq Composite Index increased 7.87

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Pure Earth, Inc. was awarded a $14 million contract in connection with the construction of a new sports facility for the New Jersey Nets in Brooklyn, N.Y. The company said that its previous work in this area was integral in securing the contract.

The contract is to treat and possibly reuse the contaminated soil that will be removed from the site in preparation for construction.

“This is a huge award in what has been a very challenging year for Pure Earth, Inc. We have continued to focus on establishing a superior network of facilities which can provide cost-effective services in the market place. The Company believes that this award, along with the increased bidding activity and anticipated future project awards, should return its base business to levels it achieved in 2007 when the Company had $6.9 million of positive cash flow,” said Mark Alsentzer, the CEO of Pure Earth,

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Reuters has a feature on the nanotechnology surge; Rusnano head Anatoly Chubais sees the crisis as an opportunity to drive the economy away from oil and gas.  Chubais has apparently said that Russia's Moscow Bank may create an innovation market that would have a trading floor the equivalent of Nasdaq.  Bloomberg reports on how the collapse in oil and gas prices has pushed Vladimir Putin towards economic reform.  Rushydro is looking for a 10-year, $234.7 million loan to pay for some of the repairs to the Sayano-Shushenskaya power plant.  Truck maker Kamaz intends to establish two joint ventures with US company Case New Holland.  To prevent the ruble from strengthening and assist exporters, Russia's central bank reportedly bought between $750 million and $1 billion in foreign currency yesterday.  Billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov is quoted in the Moscow ...

The FT reports that Russia and China have warned that the impact of the financial crisis is far from over.  The cabinet has approved a 2010 draft budget, with major cuts on managing government ministries, which may see officials forced to reduce spending by 20% on their cars, phones and offices.  Next year will see an apparent record amount of spending on pensions, a 46% increase, amounting to 10% of the GDP.  The Prime Minster has warned against 'mechanical' cuts in spending, fearing that a sense of financial drought could prolong the downturn.  Gaz group has apparently signed a debt-restructuring agreement with 21 domestic and foreign banks.  Avtovaz is planning to make 27,600 employees redundant.  Hasbro has opened an office in Moscow, hoping to see their cut of the huge toy market 'grow significantly'.  Eyebrow-raising ...

Brooklyn could soon have itself a new Russian billionaire patron, as Mikhail Prokhorov has reportedly made an offer to own the New Jersey Nets, helping real estate developer Bruce Ratner with a $700 million bond to move the team and build a new arena in the New York City borough.Prokhorov, who has been developing an increasingly well known public profile as a Russian Richard Branson (see him jump his jet ski here), announced the news on his blog.  In one translation of his statement, Prokhorov says he is interested in bringing the "technology" of the NBA business model back to Russia, to build a sustainable and profitable professional league, and to give Russia a rightful place in the world of elite U.S. sports.This move will put Prokhorov right up there next to Chelsea-owner Roman ...

Bloomberg reports that GDP will apparently shrink 8.5% this year, but the government hopes to see a return to growth in 2010.  The IMF says that Russia's economy will enjoy a 'fairly rapid recovery' in the second half of the year as a result of the government's anti-crisis measures.  The Cabinet will review final budget figures for next year that suggest spending will stay the same as this year in spite of the crisis.  The government plans to use the last of the Reserve Fund and resume borrowing for the first time in 11 years to fulfill its projections.  Not 'possible, or even beneficial' - Anders Aslund gets real about the ruble as reserve currency in the Moscow Times.  Sberbank has posted a $243.7 million net profit for January-August 2009, a 92% drop on the same ...

Author: toronAdded: Wed, 18 Mar 2009 21:50:13 -0800Duration: 238

Toron Managing partner arthur Heinmaa examines the growing concerns of deflation in the Canadian economy and what the risks might be for 2009. 

Dell unveiled their new ultraslim, the Adamo, a few days ago. The new laptop is a 13.4 inch “luxury” portable featuring no optical drive, a long life sealed-in battery, edge-to-edge glass screen, and a solid state hard drive comes at the very affordable starting price of $1999. Does this sound familiar? A MacBook Air, perhaps? To a lesser extent, the HP Voodoo Envy 133? 

One can’t fault Dell for wanting to keep up with Apple and HP. HP has maintained its stranglehold on worldwide notebook marketshare for over two years. In North America, Dell’s “home territory,” marketshare has fallen below 2006 levels while Apple and HP continue to capture the bulk of sector growth. 

Data courtesy of Gridstone Research. Apple bars represent “Total

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pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/-Gb4DZlL6YZX8HuZFSHh8L-dwjU/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/-Gb4DZlL6YZX8HuZFSHh8L-dwjU/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pLast week you noted that consumer and a style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);" href="http://mast-economy.blogspot.com/2009/03/consumer-pessimism-receding-investors.html"investor confidence were up significantly/a. But taking a closer look at the data reveals just how significant the confidence bounce was.br /br /In fact according to the archive of a href="http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/business/indexes/rasmussen_consumer_index"Rasmussen Confidence Index data/a, it only took five days last week for a href="http://legacy.rasmussenreports.com/rasmussen_index.htm"the daily index/a to make up almost all of the ground it had slowly lost over the past five months. (Click to enlarge chart)br /br /a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_jlRX6zR7UgM/ScG_xpHp-aI/AAAAAAAAAUU/MAYFqHcJ4Oo/s1600-h/5days.jpg"img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 398px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_jlRX6zR7UgM/ScG_xpHp-aI/AAAAAAAAAUU/MAYFqHcJ4Oo/s400/5days.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5314739894846355874" border="0" //abr /You've seen how a style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);" href="http://mast-economy.blogspot.com/2009/03/retail-growth-is-indeed-leading-us-to.html"consumer spending drives recovery/a. Here's just one more data point leading us out of the winter doldrums into a much a style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);" href="http://mast-economy.blogspot.com/2009/02/evidence-points-to-recessions-end-by.html"cheerier spring and summer./adiv class="blogger-post-footer"div/div No Gloom here. Only Good ...

The markets continued to rally as the Dow Jones ended up 1.23% at 7486.58 while the S&P and NASDAQ closed up 2.09% and 1.99% respectively. The 10 year saw yields shrink as news that the Fed will increase its open market purchase pushed prices up. Yields closed around 2.55%. Gold and oil settled up at $49 and $929.50 as investors pushed funds into these commodities.

Big news from the tech sector today as International Business Machines [IBM: 91.95, -0.96 (-1.03%)] is in talks to purchase the ailing hardware maker Sun Microsystems [JAVA: 8.89, +3.92 (+78.87%)].  The two Companies have not outright stated anything, but sources close to both sides say an agreement is fast approaching. Could this be a strategic maneuver for IBM as competitors are beefing up their offerings in the data center space?   After all, CEO Palmisano did say he is now on

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