Is the commodity play back? Energy and materials stocks were the sole leaders today. Oil hit new highs, as did gasoline. The dollar faltered, along with financials. Airlines were down big. Sounds like March!    Read More

Fewer U.S. jobs were lost in April than economists feared and the unemployment rate unexpectedly improved...   Read More

I want to talk about a huge number: 457,000. That’s the number of construction jobs that have been lost since the sector peaked in September of 2006. What’s interesting to me about this number is that at the beginning of the downturn in housing we didn’t see a huge drop in construction jobs, primarily because workers moved from residential into commercial.    Read More

The latest overall job loss numbers are much better than economists expected and still well below the six figure numbers seen in past recessions.  Here is a breakdown of where the job losses were as well as which sectors were adding jobs.   Read More

Futures rallied 12 points on better than expected nonfarm payrolls report, with minor revisions in February and March numbers. The market will like it because while the economy is clearly soft, we are not seeing a wholesale collapse in the job market. Wages, however are weak, negative in fact if adjusted for inflation.    Read More

What's the trade ahead of Friday’s eagerly anticipated jobs report?   Read More

Hedge Fund SRM Global Master Fund is buying more Countrywide shares. The fund has boosted its stake from 32 million shares, to 47 million, or slightly more than 8 percent of shares. Most of the shares were bought in the last few days, at prices ranging from $4.83 to $5.69--so they've made some money, lost some money.    Read More

Recessions are part of capitalism. They happen every so often. We’ve had two in the last super-prosperous 25 years. And it looks like we’re entering a third one after Friday’s jobs-loss report.    Read More

For the week ending Friday, April 4, 2008 the US Markets all ended the week up over 3% or more holding on to the gains from Tueday's big rally.  This is the third consecutive week of gains for the NASDAQ, something it has not had since October of last year.    Read More

While an increase, the latest overall job loss numbers are still well below the six figure numbers seen in past recessions.  Here is a breakdown of where the job losses were as well as which sectors were adding jobs.   Read More