Insights

Wall Street Wrap – Send in the Jobs!

Stocks went up today and then they went down.  Overall the market had very little direction and net-net, pretty much went nowhere.  What did happen today is a lot of regional Federal Reserve Bank President’s spoke about the economic conditions of the country.  Janet Yellen, President of the San Francisco Fed and a current voting member of the FOMC, stated that she sees a jobless recovery and says interest rates could remain low for some time.  Yellen spoke at 10:00 a.m. to Lambda Alpha International in Phoenix, and at about 10:05 gold took off on an intra-day spike gaining $8 an ounce within the next 30 minutes.  At exactly the same time a large sell order hit the PowerShares Dollar ETF (NYSE: UUP).  A comment that interest rates would remain low is another of the series of signals that weakness in the dollar should continue, so this could be coincidence, or it could mean that when The Fed President’s speak, the market listens.

Chris Dodd was on stage today with more new proposed regulations to take power away from The Fed.  We have low interest rates, cash-for-clunkers, first time home buyers programs, extended unemployment benefits and a list of programs that seem to go on for years to get people to spend money.  Washingtoon D.C is all about more regulations and other spending programs (and I did not spell ‘toon’ wrong) these days.  How about the government start focusing on CREATING JOBS!

The Atlanta Federal Reserve President Dennis Lockhart spoke at 9:15 a.m. to the Urban Land Institute conference in Atlanta, Richmond Federal Reserve President Jeffrey Lacker is giving an exclusive interview to CNBC after the close today while Dallas Federal Reserve President Richard Fisher speaks this evening to the Austin Headliners Club in Austin.  With all these people speaking that can move markets, where can you get information in one place about what they are saying?

Welcome to Tracked.com’s one-of-a-kind Fed President web pages!  Ok, so this is some serious self-promotion, but our pages on the Fed Presidents gather news stories and put them in one place for you to read.  I set these pages up myself, and if you look at my people tracker all of them are in it.

Also, the major central bankers from around the world have pages.  Jean-Claude Trichet from the European Central Bank has a page, as does Glen Stevens from The Reserve Bank of Australia.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished up 20.26 points today (+0.19%, 10,247.20) and was in and out of positive territory all day.  The S&P 500 lost 0.06 points (-0.00%, 1,093.01) and the Nasdaq 100 rose 4.77 points (+0.26%, 1,773.17).

The bond insurers got hit today.  After the last credit crisis it is surprising there is anything left to hit, but those Lazarus stocks that did rise from the dead turned around towards the cemetery today.  MBIA Inc. (NYSE: MBI) fell $1.28 or 26.66% to $3.52 after posting a loss of $3.50 per share.  Only in today’s market can a stock report losing $3.50/share and then lose $1.28/share in trading.  They must have an Enron accountant on staff.

Meanwhile, rival insurer Ambac Financial Group (NYSE: ABK) dropped 36 cents, or a whopping 30.94% to $0.81 after saying they may have to seek bankruptcy protection.  I think it is safe to say that staying away from ‘bond insurers’ might be a good idea.

New York Spot Gold spiked early and traded close to it’s all time high at $1,110.20 an ounce, but not a tick higher.  NYS Gold was last seen trading $1,104.60 up $1.70 an ounce (4:19 p.m.).

After hearing that stocks and gold did not do much, guess what happened in oil?  Not much.  Oil lost 38 cents and was last trading $79.16 a barrel.

The bond market is closed for Veteran’s Day tomorrow but stocks will be trading.  On Thursday we have Jobless Claims at 8:30 a.m. (512k) and on Friday at 9:55 a.m. the Consumer Confidence report is released (71.0).