The Unemployment Rate for October increased  by 0.4% to 10.2%, which is the largest monthly increase in the unemployment rate since April of 1983.  This release comes in more than the expected rate of 9.9%, following a level of 9.8% in September and 9.7% in August, as the number of unemployed persons increased by 558,000 to 15.4 million.  Since the start of the recession in December of 2007, the number of unemployed persons increased by 8.2 million and the unemployment rate has grown by 5.3%.  Nonfarm Payrolls fell by 190,000, with more layoffs than expected (173,000), following a 219,000 decline in September, revised upward from a 263,000 decrease.  Over the month, the largest job losses occurred in construction, manufacturing, and retail trade.  The Average Workweek stood at 33 hours, and Average Hourly Earnings increased by 0.3% over the month.

Wholesale Inventories for September are scheduled

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The Unemployment Rate for September increased to 9.8%, as expected, from 9.7% in August, as the number of unemployed persons increased by 446,000.  Since the start of the recession in December of 2007, the number of unemployed persons increased by 7.6 million to 15.1 million and the unemployment rate has doubled.  Nonfarm Payrolls fell by 263,000, with more layoffs than expected, since initial claims were expected to decrease by 176,000, following a 201,000 decline in August, which was revised from -216,000.  Over the month, the largest job losses occurred in construction, manufacturing, retail trade, and government.  The Average Workweek was shortened to 33 hours, and Average Hourly Earnings increased by 0.1% over the month.

Upcoming Releases ISM Services Index (10/05 at 10:00 AM EST) Consumer Credit (10/07 at 3:00 PM EST) Initial Claims (10/08 at 8:30 AM EST) Wholesale Inventories (10/08 at 10:00 AM EST)

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The longer the rally persists, the more dangerous it becomes.

The S&P 500 is up almost 60% since March. The Dow just had its best quarter since ’98.

Yesterday, the Dow slipped 29 points. Is the rally finally rolling over? Or is this a genuine bull market, just taking a pause?

If it is a real bull market it’s a funny-looking bull – one that is missing parts!

For example, corporate earnings are missing. P/E ratios are rising far above the corporate earnings that support them. This puts the market 35% overvalued on a cyclically-adjusted P/E basis, says Smithers & Co.

And if you look at it in terms of its “q” ratio – a comparison of capitalisation and replacement costs – the S&P is even more overvalued. As for emerging markets, “they’re off the charts,” says the Financial Times.

Another missing part is the consumer. This from David Rosenberg:

“ Consumer confidence not only

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By Cees Bruggemans, Chief Economist FNB

When having to make a binary decision (yes/no, whether or not to change interest rates) one is apparently well advised to, firstly, stick to the facts and, secondly, to keep things simple.

Keeping things simple preordains a view on basically two dimensions, namely the inflation forecast and the chances of getting this right, and the state of the economy (whether it is over- or underperforming).

Incidentally, these two dimensions coincide with the inflation gap and output gap dynamics of the Taylor Rule, but with somewhat different reasoning.

First, the inflation outlook. There seems to be consensus that after halving from 13.5% to 6.7% over the past year, CPI inflation has a bit more sliding to do over the coming year, reaching 5% territory in 2H2010.

That’s the good news, but it is incomplete. We want to know the chances (risk) of actually seeing

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According to the latest news from Monster Worldwide Inc. (MWW), online job postings surged in August and registered the highest monthly gain in four years following slow hiring activity in summer. However, it was down 24% year over year. Monster World Wide is an online recruitment firm and the parent company of Monster.com, the leading career website in the world. The company, headquartered in New York, is also the largest advertising agency network for worldwide recruitment. Management stated that this surge in job postings indicates signs of improvement in the US economy, with the demand for managers and professionals as well as sales and office workers picking up. Online labor demand in the arts, entertainment and recreation industry rebounded from a historic low in July. Demand for staff in sales and commerce related industries also registered an increase in both retail trade and wholesale trade....

This was another week when everybody but me sees an economic recovery in the works.

Certainly Thursday's report of a 0.1% decline in U.S. retail trade and food services sales for July was a disappointment. Dan Greenhaus explains why he found the number startling:

The cash for clunkers program was expected to have had quite an effect on retail sales. However motor vehicle and parts rose only 2.4%; expectations had looked for a gain more than double. Sales at auto and other motor vehicle dealers were up just 2.8%, a healthy gain to be certain but far less than many economists expected. The initial impression is that, perhaps, some of the cash for clunkers sales will find their way into the August data.

The auto numbers are indeed surprising, since we know directly from industry counts that the number of autos sold in the U.S. was up

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Stocks swung back into action Wednesday after a two-day retreat as the U.S. Federal Reserve’s optimistic comments at the end of a two-day meeting re-energized investors and bolstered hopes that the recession is finally easing.  The Central Bank’s observation that the economy appears to be “leveling out" was optimistic but its subdued outlook on unemployment and inflation took some sheen off that optimism.  The Fed also announced plans to slow the pace of its program to purchase $300 billion worth of Treasury bonds, adding the full amount will be bought by October.

The 30-stock Dow Jones industrial average finished 120 points, or 1.3%, higher.  The broad S&P 500 index rose 11 points, or 1.1%. The tech-heavy NASDAQ composite advanced 29 points, or 1.5%.  On the New York Stock Exchange 1.23 billion shares exchanged hands and advancing stocks outpaced those that fell five-to-two.

Stocks seesawed after the Fed’s announcement, with

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German consumer confidence declined for the first time in seven months as workers worried about keeping their jobs amid the worst recession since World War II. GfK AG’s confidence index for April, based on a survey of about 2,000 people, declined to 2.4, the Nuremberg-based market- research company said in a statement today. March’s result was revised down to 2.5 from 2.6. br /br /a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ngczZkrw340/ScuFpubSkBI/AAAAAAAANQs/5ib4oAFAOIY/s1600-h/german+consumer+confidence.png"img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 199px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ngczZkrw340/ScuFpubSkBI/AAAAAAAANQs/5ib4oAFAOIY/s400/german+consumer+confidence.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5317490736924626962" //abr /br /strongEconomic expectations: slight decline/strongbr /br /After an increase in February, economic expectations in March this year have decreased by 4.9 points, a drop that is almost on a par with the gains of the previous month. The indicator currently stands at -32.8 points.br /br /At present, consumers are still seeing little reason to abandon their pessimism as regards the economy, and fear of job losses is also coming increasingly to ...

by Edward Hugh: Barcelonabr /br /Spain’s unemployment, already the highest in the European Union, shot up again in January, rising by the most in at least 13 years, marking the 10th consecutive monthly increase as Spain’s recession continues to deepen.br /br /br /pa href=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ngczZkrw340/SYgPhhx8SqI/AAAAAAAAMi8/uWyGkQMQKrA/s1600-h/spain+number+unem.png”img id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5298502030279330466″ style=”DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 219px; TEXT-ALIGN: center” alt=”" src=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ngczZkrw340/SYgPhhx8SqI/AAAAAAAAMi8/uWyGkQMQKrA/s400/spain+number+unem.png” border=”0″ //abr /br /The number of people registering as unemployed was up by 6.4 percent, or 198,838, from December, and the total reached 3.33 million, according to the latest INEM data release. That was the biggest month on month jump since at least 1996. From January 2008, the number of claimants jumped 47.12 per cent (just marginally above last months year-on-year increase of 46.93 per cent) or by more than a million.br /br /a href=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_ngczZkrw340/SYgNgxNeIwI/AAAAAAAAMi0/TkGNSgtBlDQ/s1600-h/spain+unem+yoy.png”img id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5298499818218201858″ style=”DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 220px; TEXT-ALIGN: …

blockquoteThe highly open Czech economy is set to slow down considerably, affected by the deteriorating outlook for its main trading partners. Although GDP growth was still solid in Q3 2008, both exports and imports growth slowed significantly. The global crisis is expected to adversely impact the real economy particularly from the fourth quarter of 2008. Overall, GDP is expected to have grown by 4.2% in 2008 with a strong contribution from the external balance.br /EU Commission Forecast January 2009/blockquotepAnalysts and followers of the Czech economy are basically agreed on two things at the moment: that the Czech is slowing (and rapidly), and that the dependence on car exports is a real achilles heal at a time when a generalised credit crunch means that the financing which is needed for people to make car purchases often quite simply isn’t there. Beyond this point opinions differ. Some expect the slowdown to end …