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Posts Tagged ‘economy’

Saturday, August 28, 2010 posted by cversace

As Labor Day approaches, many of us are contemplating the end of summer, pre-season football and squeezing in the last bit of vacation. There are others, however, who are gearing up for back to school.

To say I have not been eyeing back to school this year in particular would be a lie. With Commerce Department data saying consumer spending has weakened in recent months, the shots in the arm that retailers and consumer-product companies are counting on are back to school and the holiday season.

While the holiday season is still more than several weeks away, we are in the thick of back to school. For the uninitiated or those without kids, back to school is an annual ritual wherein students update their wardrobes with fresh clothes, sneakers, cleats, school supplies and other equipment they’ll need heading into the fall and winter months for school, sports and other activities.

According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), back-to-school spending is set to jump by 10.5 percent this year as Americans loosen their purse strings following a cash-strapped 2009. Per that study, combined spending will be $55.1 billion, making it second only to holiday shopping.

READ MORE HERE

Chris Versace, the Thematic Investor and Think 20/20’s Director of Research, will be on America’s Mornings News this Monday (August 9th) morning to talk the economy, the employment situation, double dip prospects, the stock market and investing, and whatever else hosts John McCaslin and Amy Holmes can cook up.

Friday, August 6, 2010 posted by cversace

All eyes over the past week have once again turned toward the job picture. A surprise? I think not for several reasons. The least of which was the weekly jobless claims number released on Thursday showed higher than expected initial claims. The real driver of renewed interest and pundit positioning on jobs is the monthly employment report for July, which arrives on Friday. This will be the latest score card for not only the health of the economy but also for how effective the current administration and its stimulative efforts have been.

Per Briefing.com, consensus expectations call for an unemployment rate of 9.6 percent in July, up slightly from 9.5 percent in June. The uptick reflects the shared view that the economy shed 70,000 jobs in July. Economists estimate that the private sector created 100,000 jobs but government employment fell 170,000, as more temporary census jobs disappeared.

The notion that private-sector jobs were created in July was backed up by the ADP employment report for July. That report showed the sixth straight month of job gains in the private sector. Thats the good news. The bad news is that the increase was only 42,000 jobs for July and the six-month average is 37,000. Both of those figures are a far cry from not only monthly job losses but also pale in comparison with new weekly unemployment claims.

READ MORE HERE

Monday, July 26, 2010 posted by cversace

This morning, Chris Versace, the Thematic Investor, will be on America’s Morning News to talk the economy, budget deficits, Bush tax cuts, housing,  unemployment, investing and whatever else hosts John McCaslin and Amy Holmes want to talk about.

Friday, July 23, 2010 posted by cversace

Corporate earnings continued at a fast and furious pace this week, and we started to hear from a wider variety of companies.

Again, however, it was a mixed bag. Solid earnings and outlooks from the likes of Apple Inc., Qualcomm Inc., Morgan Stanley and eBay Inc. were offset by disappointing earnings, outlooks or both by Yum Brands, Starbucks, IBM, Goldman Sachs Group and others. This resulted in a topsy-turvy stock market, which should be expected. Not only is that one of the trials and tribulations of any earnings season, but it is amplified by where we are in the domestic economic recovery.

Or not.

While some may cut to the quick and ask, “How can he say that?” I would quickly point to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s semiannual report to the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee on Wednesday. At the heart of Mr. Bernanke’s testimony, he stated that the Fed continues to forecast moderate growth for the domestic economy this year despite a “somewhat weaker outlook.”

Mr. Bernanke went on to pronounce the outlook as “unusually uncertain.”

READ MORE HERE

With little in the way of economic data for the first part of this past week, it comes as little surprise that corporate earnings took center stage. Upbeat earnings reports and upwardly revised expectations from Alcoa,CSXIntel and others fueled a nice upward move early in the week, particularly for the technology heavy Nasdaq index. Outlooks from Alcoaand CSX suggested a better second half compared with what some on the Street had been expecting, but we need to decipher between what may be wishful thinking and what may actually happen.

To be fair, some sour notes tempered positive news early in the week. Missed expectations from Yum Brands as well as a cautious outlook from Marriott International support the notion that we are not out of the woods.

Unfortunately, it reminds me what I wrote about last week (“With doubts about the recovery, what to do?”) when I touched on reduced expectations for growth. Unfortunately, those sour notes grew as the week wore on.

READ MORE HERE

Friday, June 11, 2010 posted by cversace

We are roughly one-third of the way through June and so far the major stock market indexes are all negative month to date despite the rally under way Thursday morning.

Taking a step back and examining the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average, we find that both are down year to date and the same holds true for the Nasdaq Composite Index. The market direction coupled with recent surveys of consumers and businesses, not to mention eroding favor for the current administration, play into growing bearishness when it comes to the stock market.

Case in point: An Investors Intelligence poll, which surveys financial newsletter writers, showed an uptick in bearishness to 31.9% from 28.4% last week. That is the highest bearish level since July 2009.

READ MORE HERE

The roller-coaster stock-market ride continued this past week amid worries over Europe and the euro early in the week followed renewed concern over the state of the economy asrevised gross domestic product (GDP) and weekly jobless-claims data became available.

Concerns over the ability of Europe to solve its debt-related problems and for the eurozone to eventually recover lifted when People’s Bank of China issued a statement dismissing “groundless” reports that the State Administration of Foreign Exchange was evaluating its investment in eurozone debt.

The People’s Bank of China went on to say it was committed to long-term investment in Europe. With People’s Bank of China holding more than $600 billion, the support for Europe lifted the euro and fueled a strong reversal in the stock-market indexes. As I discussed several weeks ago, volatility gives way to opportunity for prepared investors.

Despite this fragile but solidifying position on Europe, fresh domestic economic data points to some slowing in our economic recovery.

Saturday, May 22, 2010 posted by cversace

Think 20/20’s Chris Versace will be appear on America’s Morning News hosted by John McCaslin on Monday, May 24th to discuss the economy, the stock market and all things in between.