The stock market gets a modest increase thanks to smaller jobless cases

For the very first time in weeks, the number of new jobless claims has sharply dropped. The last six months have been somewhat dismal for employment, though temporary boosts were provided by seasonal employment around the holidays and also the U.S. census. Good news is better than bad news. Housing, the other area that is bad off, is nevertheless within the basement. However, the news is a nearly Pyrrhic victory, as unemployment has held somewhat steadily since November of 2009. The news got stock markets to climb ever so slightly. Post resource – Stock market climbs as jobless claims are reduced by Personal Money Store.

Modest reduction in brand new jobless cases

A drop was recorded in the quantity of brand new cases for unemployment benefits by the Department of Labor. Seasonally adjusted, there were 473,000 jobless cases. However, that number is down by 31,000 over the last week. That’s encouraging, but the past four weeks average to 486,750. According to Forbes, that’s the highest since November 2009. That said, winter jobless claims have to be taken with a grain of salt, as holiday seasonal employment provides a slight spike for the busiest part of the retail year. The U.S. Census also employed a fair amount of people seasonally.

Jobless claims spur stock market climb

As outlined by the Wall Street Journal, the news did some immediate good. It gave stock markets a very modest increase. The uptick was modest at best; the greatest gain was a .3 percent boost for Standard and Poor’s. The Dow went up an unbelievable .1 percent, and Nasdaq shot up .2 percent. The large news on Wall Street is really the Dell acquisition, though others try to stop it, of data storage company 3Par. A bidding war between Dell and Hewlett-Packard for 3 Par has been the huge story on Wall Street over the last week, after last week’s rampant coverage of Potash Corp.

Not even close to from the woods

This was not a radical decrease in unemployment. There are few indicators it is decreasing by much. Fewer employers are at the moment hiring. Real estate shows few signs of life, and it is believed that up to 10 percent of all homeowners may have foreclosure as a significant possibility in their future.

Additional reading

Forbes

forbes.com/feeds/ap/2010/08/26/real-estate-industrials-us-economy_7879865.html

Wall Street Journal

online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20100826-709681.html