Archive for the ‘unemployment’ Category

Economist believe recession has ended

Posted by Michael on October 12th, 2009

We have been hearing a lot of rumors that the recession is finally over, and we get another hint at this today with a new report that the majority of economists believe that the recession has ended but econonic recovery is going to be slow.

According to a poll by National Association for Business Economics, 80% of economists that it polled stated that they believe the recession has ended and the economy is once again expanding.

While it is encouraging to hear that the economy may be starting to expand, we still have to pay attention to two factors that are going to keep a recovery moving slowly: high unemployment and a large federal debt.

Unemployment is what is on the minds of most Americans, the majority of which have either felt the pain of losing their job, or know someone that has. September unemployment was 9.8%, and is expected to continue to climb, and will probably break through the 10% mark earlier next year. Until we start to see those numbers fall it will be hard to convince anyone that the economy is back in good shape.

Analysts expect to see unemployment break through 10% in the first quarter of next year, and then slowly start to recede back down towards 9.5% by the end of 2010. Even if we do see unemployment fall to “only” 9.5% that still means that there is going to be a lot of pain out there as American’s continue to worry about the jobs. The recovery is not really going to take off until consumer confidence and spending start to return to normal, and it will be hard for that to happen while nearly 1 out of 10 people are looking for work.

The markets all traded relatively flat today despite the encouraging news.

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Wall Street closes the week on a strong note

Posted by Michael on February 7th, 2009

Despite being hit with some seriously unfavorable employment data today, Wall Street made strong gains to close out the week today.

The DOW was up 2.7% today, the NSADAQ inched up 2.9%, and the S&P posted a rise of 2.7%.

Earlier in the day, it appeared as though we may be in store for a sell off when the Labor Department released unemployment data for January. In its report, it said that January saw another 598,000 people lose their jobs. On the whole, the country is now looking at a total unemployment rate of 7.6%. At this rate, the country’s unemployment is running at its highest level since 1992.

OIL: While the stock market was able to shrug off the unemployment data today, oil traders did not, and pushed oil prices down under $40 a barrel today, before settling at $40.17. On the week, oil prices were down by 3.7%.

We will pick up again next week and see if the market’s optimism carries over after the weekend.

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