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@theMarket: Jobless Number Spoils the Party
Bill Schmick,
07:49AM / Saturday, July 09, 2011

Up until Friday's disappointing unemployment numbers, the stock market appeared ready to regain the year's high all in one week. However, the ugly news that the nation hired a meager 18,000 of our unemployed dashed investor's hopes that the economy might be gaining strength in the second half.

Equities plummeted across the board, as did commodities, while Treasury bonds and gold provided safe havens for worried investors. The Republicans were quick to call a news conference highlighting the Obama administration's failure to create jobs while providing platitudes on how to get America back to work. Unfortunately, neither party has come up with anything close to effective in combating

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@theMarket: Jobs Versus the Market
Bill Schmick,
07:06AM / Saturday, June 04, 2011

The May non-farm payroll jobs report was a disappointment. So much so that investors dumped stocks, convinced that because the country only added 54,000 jobs, the economy is kaput and we all headed for economic Armageddon. Now, doesn't that sound silly?

Let's get real folks. We didn't lose 300,000 jobs last month, which might have justified Friday morning's sell-off. Sure, economists were looking for a job gain of 100,000 plus but why should any one be surprised that unemployment is still above 9 percent given the slow growth rate of our economy?

Since the end of the recession, quarterly GDP has been at best erratic. Beginning with the third quarter of 2009, we have experienced the

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@theMarket: Is September's Rally Stalling or Pausing?
Bill Schmick,
07:26AM / Saturday, September 11, 2010

After opening the month with a 5 percent market melt-up, investors were expecting a follow-through this week that would take the averages higher. There was even talk of a possible break through the ceiling of this almost six-month trading range. Instead we only managed a couple point gain over last week's close on the S&P 500.

That was despite some "good" economic news on the unemployment front. Initial unemployment claims were down by 27,000 and continuing claims fell 2,000, the best in two months... The bears argue that not all states submitted employment numbers so optimistic estimates were used instead, in some cases.  They also point out that once a

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@theMarket: Stocks Regain Their Footing and Then Some
Bill Schmick,
12:58AM / Monday, September 06, 2010

This wasn't supposed to happen. The week before Labor Day is notoriously slow with few, if any gains or losses for the week, but somebody forgot to tell that to the markets. It would appear from the upside action that we are once again going to run the S&P 500 Index back to the top of the range at 1,130. Whether we break that upside resistance remains to be seen.

I telegraphed readers that we could have a bounce this week but even I was not expecting this much upside.. The rally kicked off on Wednesday, the first day of September, and in just three days the indexes have gained more than 5 percent. Ostensibly, the trigger for this melt-up was some manufacturing data out of China and a

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