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- PCs and their makers trying to morph to more - mobile, pads, storage, what next? More M&A - http://bit.ly/aFGWAK $DELL $GOOG $MSFT $AAPL
- Launching The Thematic Investor newsletter - take a look here http://bit.ly/bLO1H7 $KOPN $EQIX $CSCO $CL $K $PG $AAPL $NFLX $RIMM $SVVS $T
- Tune in to Chris Versace on America's Morning News....http://bit.ly/cta0IQ #economy #investing #politics
- $KOPN: Solid 2Q10 Lays the Ground for a Better 2H10 http://bit.ly/bPNFIU
- Getting ready for the July employment report http://bit.ly/aadu2D
- $IIVI Bookings for the quarter increased 120% to a record $125,985,000 compared to $57,245,000 in the fourth quarter of last fiscal year
- Big Lots 2Q revenue comparison rises http://bit.ly/cSdVvJ $BIG
- Smartphone demand drives 54% year-on-year growth in Kopin’s III-V revenue in Q2 http://bit.ly/cGKhkB $KOPN $SWKS
- Commented on: "Universal Display: Showing a Less Than Promising Future" http://soc.li/k0PiaxO $PANL
- Since when does #SmarTrend call EPS upside? showing consensus # is not the same as calling for upside http://bit.ly/9QMdoe $PANL
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Posts Tagged ‘unemployment’
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 and the employment report, the stock market and investing, and whatever else hosts John McCaslin and Amy Holmes can cook up.
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.
Chris Versace, the Thematic Investor, will be on America’s Morning News this Monday, August 2, to talk the economy, budget deficits, , housing, unemployment, investing, other financial topics and whatever else hosts John McCaslin and Amy Holmes want to talk about.
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.
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.”
Like many people, I woke up Thursday morning and, as I scratched my head, realized we are halfway through 2010.
The halfway point, at least for me, tends to be a time to consider where I’ve come from and what lies ahead for the next half. This is true for exercise, long drives like the one to Hilton Head, S.C., last week, or investing and the stock market.
Through the markets’ close on Wednesday - June 30, the last day of the year’s first half - the major indices continued the roller-coaster pattern I have described over the past year - a drop into early February followed by a steady climb into late April and then a series of drops through the end of June.
The net effect is that all the major indices are down by percentages in the mid-single digits for the first six months of 2010, with the largest drop posted by the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, which was down 6.2 percent. It will be a few weeks until data from Morningstar and other fund-tracking sources are available and shed some light on how mutual funds and hedge funds have performed for both the second quarter and first half of 2010.
The pullback in the stock market is something I have been warning about for more than a few weeks as more data points have emerged to call into question the strength and sustainability of the economic recovery.
As even the most passive investor would recognize, the housing market has been a volatile one over the past several months. This volatility has increased to the downside with the expiration of the first-time homebuyer credit at the end of April. Since that expiration, new home sales dropped to a record low in May, mortgage applications have declined and housing prices remain weak over concerns over the strength of the economic recovery. And yet, there appear to be pockets of strength - as some have stated in the past, there is always a bull market out there; the trick is to find it.
To make some sense of this, I spoke with Steve Kann, the Washington D.C. District director for ZipRealty Inc., a California-based full service residential real estate brokerage firm.
Q: Steve, what is the current tone of the housing market as ZipRealty sees it following the expiration of the housing tax credit?
A: There was a quite a mad rush to put deals under contract before the tax credit expired, and we are seeing a bit of “wait and see” in the market right now - seeing if prices soften at all. However, Zip’s Home Hunter Report, released in April, revealed that several markets throughout the country are seeing multiple offers and above-list price contracts for the first time in several quarters. There are still plenty of active buyers out there (more than 235,000 active on ZipRealty.com alone since the tax credit went away).
Q: Is the housing market adapting to “the new normal” after so many years of growth?
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.
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.