STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Thursday, 31 October 2013

[Tansy_Gold]

[font size=3]STOCK MARKET WATCH, Thursday, 31 October 2013[font color=black][/font]

SMW for 30 October 2013

AT THE CLOSING BELL ON 30 October 2013
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Dow Jones 15,618.76 -61.59 (-0.39%)
S&P 500 1,763.31 -8.64 (-0.49%)
Nasdaq 3,930.62 -21.72 (-0.55%)


[font color=red]10 Year 2.53% +0.04 (1.61%)
30 Year 3.64% +0.03 (0.83%) [font color=black]


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[font size=2]Market Conditions During Trading Hours[/font]
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[font size=2]Euro, Yen, Loonie, Silver and Gold[center]

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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Market Data and News:[/font][/font]
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Economic Calendar
Marketwatch Data
Bloomberg Economic News
Yahoo Finance
Google Finance
Bank Tracker
Credit Union Tracker
Daily Job Cuts
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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Economic Blogs:[/font][/font]
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The Big Picture
Financial Sense
Calculated Risk
Naked Capitalism
Credit Writedowns
Brad DeLong
Bonddad
Atrios
goldmansachs666
The Stand-Up Economist
The Automatic Earth
Wall Street on Parade
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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Essential Reading:[/font][/font]
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Matt Taibi: Secret and Lies of the Bailout


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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Government Issues:[/font][/font]
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LegitGov
Open Government
Earmark Database
USA spending.gov
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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Videos:[/font][/font]
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Charlie Rose talks with Roubini
Charlie Rose talks with Krugman
William Black: This Economic Disaster
Bill Moyers with Kevin Drum and David Corn
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[font color=red]Partial List of Financial Sector Officials Convicted since 1/20/09 [/font][font color=red]
2/2/12 David Higgs and Salmaan Siddiqui, Credit Suisse, plead guilty to conspiracy involving valuation of MBS
3/6/12 Allen Stanford, former Caribbean billionaire and general schmuck, convicted on 13 of 14 counts in $2.2B Ponzi scheme, faces 20+ years in prison
6/4/12 Matthew Kluger, lawyer, sentenced to 12 years in prison, along with co-conspirator stock trader Garrett Bauer (9 years) and co-conspirator Kenneth Robinson (not yet sentenced) for 17 year insider trading scheme.
6/14/12 Allen Stanford sentenced to 110 years without parole.
6/15/12 Rajat Gupta, former Goldman Sachs director, found guilty of insider trading. Could face a decade in prison when sentenced later this year.
6/22/12 Timothy S. Durham, 49, former CEO of Fair Financial Company, convicted of one count conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, 10 counts of wire fraud, and one count of securities fraud.
6/22/12 James F. Cochran, 56, former chairman of the board of Fair, convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, one count of securities fraud, and six counts of wire fraud.
6/22/12 Rick D. Snow, 48, former CFO of Fair, convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, one count of securities fraud, and three counts of wire fraud.
7/13/12 Russell Wassendorf Sr., CEO of collapsed brokerage firm Peregrine Financial Group Inc. arrested and charged with lying to regulators after admitting to authorities he embezzled "millions of dollars" and forged bank statements for "nearly twenty years."
8/22/12 Doug Whitman, Whitman Capital LLC hedge fund founder, convicted of insider trading following a trial in which he spent more than two days on the stand telling jurors he was innocent
10/26/12 UPDATE: Former Goldman Sachs director Rajat Gupta sentenced to two years in federal prison. He will, of course, appeal. . .
11/20/12 Hedge fund manager Matthew Martoma charged with insider trading at SAC Capital Advisors, and prosecutors are looking at Martoma's boss, Steven Cohen, for possible involvement.
02/14/13 Gilbert Lopez, former chief accounting officer of Stanford Financial Group, and former controller Mark Kuhrt sentenced to 20 yrs in prison for their roles in Allen Sanford's $7.2 billion Ponzi scheme.
03/29/13 Michael Sternberg, portfolio mgr at SAC Capital, arrested in NYC, charged with conspiracy and securities fraud. Pled not guilty and freed on $3m bail.
04/04/13 Matthew Marshall Taylor,fmr Goldman Sachs trader arrested, charged by CFTC w/defrauding his employer on $8BN futures bet "by intentionally concealing the true huge size, as well as the risk and potential profits or losses associated."
04/04/13 Matthew Taylor admits guilt, makes plea bargain. Sentencing set for 26 June; faces up to 20 years in prison but will likely only see 3-4 years. Says, "I am truly sorry."
04/11/13 Ex-KPMG LLP partner Scott London charged by federal prosecutors w/passing inside tips to a friend in exchange for cash, jewelry, and concert tickets; expected to plead guilty in May.
08/01/13 Fabrice Tourré convicted on six counts of security fraud, including "aiding and abetting" his former employer, Goldman Sachs
08/14/13 Javier Martin-Artajo and Julien Grout charged with wire fraud, falsifying records, and conspiracy in connection with JP Morgan's "London Whale" trade.
08/19/13 Phillip A. Falcone, manager of hedge fund Harbinger Capital Partners, agrees to admit to "wrongdoing" in market manipulation. Will banned from securities industry for 5 years and pay $18MM in disgorgement and fines.
09/16/13 Javier Martin-Artajo and Julien Grout officially indicted on charges associated with "London Whale" trade.








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[font size=3][font color=red]This thread contains opinions and observations. Individuals may post their experiences, inferences and opinions on this thread. However, it should not be construed as advice. It is unethical (and probably illegal) for financial recommendations to be given here.[/font][/font][/font color=red][font color=black]

[Demeter]

1. Emerson had a saying

The other terror that scares us from self-trust is our consistency; a reverence for our past act or word because the eyes of others have no other data for computing our orbit than our past acts, and we are loath to disappoint them.
...


A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.

Source: Emerson, Self-Reliance http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Essays:_First_Series/Self-Reliance


Emerson is saying that the small-minded are crippled by the feeling that they have to be consistent - never to change their minds on the basis of new information - because they're afraid of offending the kind of people who like certainties and think someone changing their opinion is bad.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100310070431AAhZSbW

Emerson believed that people need to stop foolishly following everyone else, and become self-reliant. To break it down into plain English:

"Foolish consistency" - doing something the same way over and over without a good reason
"hobgoblin" - a monster or demon or, in this case, it means the thing that trips you up
"little minds" - people who cannot think logically and rationally
"little statesmen and philosophers and divines" - small-minded politicians, philosophers, and church officials

Thus, following rules without reasons is the thing which hampers small-minded people.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_does_%27a_foolish_consistency_is_the_hobgoblin_of_little_minds%27_mean

...Ralph Waldo Emerson's statement: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines." I am not going to pretend I fully understand Emerson's point, but I will emphatically state that he DOES NOT mean that consistency is bad, but "foolish" or inappropriate consistency is. Another writer, Oscar Wilde had a different take: "Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative." When it comes to a design, "A foolish imagination is the last stop of a soon-to-be unemployed designer" (original quote of Jon D. Pearson).

Consistency versus imagination - the two are neither at odds nor opposite ends of the spectrum. Take for instance how a button works. If you were to look at a pushbutton on a device, could you tell its function by sight alone (all you can see is a button)? Probably not. Now, if I let you you play with the button and view what happens, and then asked you what its function is, do you think you could tell me? Only if it behaves consistently. Now, what if it is a really low-quality button, the contacts are very bouncy, the button has a lot of play in it and the device it is connected to is not debouncing the switch? As long as the function is consistent (when pressed the light turns on and when released it turns off, or pressing toggles the light on and pressing when light is on toggles light to off) you would have no problem to "specify" the behavior or to use this switch (although you may have to practice patience).

Now, imagine the switch is very high quality and the device is sensing it very precisely, but there are hundreds of combinations of current status (button pressure, time-pressed, orientation of button) and previous state (time in state, pressure/time/orientation when entered or exited). How long would it take to exhaust all possibilities and experience them frequently enough to "learn" all the behavioral nuances to be able to specify the switch "behavior"? Answer is somewhere between now and eternity (or until you give up and go do something else).

Now try one more thought experiment: imagine you are creating a new home entertainment device, and the only switch and behavior you could make use of was a momentary pushbutton. Why? Because that is what you used before and therefore will always use, exclusively. Could you design a product with this constraint? Sure. Would it be satisfying enough to sell well? Depends upon the device and use-case complexity, but likely this artificial constraint would hamper the design and therefore the customer satisfaction and in turn sales.

So which is the right way? My suggestion is to always consider the user - if a user is better served by an imaginative re-definition, then go for it. If users are very comfortable with doing things a certain way, take great care in changing this behavior (and even greater care if improper use could be dangerous). But in every case, provide consistency at least in the local sense of being understandable and repeatable. Humans are very good at learning and training themselves to adapt to a poor design that always acts the same way. They have much less patience for an elegant design they cannot remember or understand how to use.

http://www.cypress.com/?rID=42693

[Demeter]

2. That last excerpt describes me and technology precisely

"Humans are very good at learning and training themselves to adapt to a poor design that always acts the same way. They have much less patience for an elegant design they cannot remember or understand how to use. "


I'll leave implications for Obamacare to the imagination, for the student to work out for him/her self...

[Demeter]

3. Sebelius Admits She Has Never Actually Gotten on Healthcare.gov by Andy Borowitz

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2013/10/sebelius-admits-she-has-never-actually-gotten-on-healthcareorg.html?utm_source=tny&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=borowitz&mbid=nl_Borowitz%20%28190%29

Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius dropped a bombshell during her testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee today, admitting that she has never successfully logged on to the Obamacare Web site, healthcare.gov.

The jaw-dropping confession occurred just minutes into the hearing, after Chairman Fred Upton (R-Michigan) asked Secretary Sebelius about some of the functions of the site, causing her to respond, “I don’t feel comfortable talking about a Web site that I’ve never actually gotten onto.”

Continuing to address the visibly stunned committee members, she said, “I’ve tried to log on to it, I don’t know, maybe twenty times or so, but every time I have it’s crashed. I tried again right before I came over here, but no such luck.”

When Chairman Upton expressed astonishment that she had not visited the Web site that she is charged with overseeing, Secretary Sebelius responded, “My Web people are telling me I should be able to log on to the site by the end of November. December 15th at the latest.”

Secretary Sebelius said that she would be happy to discuss Web sites that she had successfully logged on to, such as LinkedIn, where she recently posted her résumé.

[xchrom]

4. CENTRAL BANKS GIVE EACH OTHER ACCESS TO CURRENCY

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CENTRAL_BANKS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-10-31-06-59-28

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) -- Six of the world's leading central banks, including the U.S. Federal Reserve, say they will provide each other with ready supplies of their currencies on a standing basis, extending arrangements set up to steady the global financial system during post-2007 turbulence.

The decision announced Thursday extends currency swap arrangements that until now had been considered temporary measures.

The central banks are: the Fed, the European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan, the Bank of England, the Bank of Canada and the Swiss National Bank.

The so-called swap lines enable those central banks to make sure banks in their home countries can always borrow ready cash from them in any of the currencies involved, should they need it.

[xchrom]

5. WORLD STOCKS SINK ON FEAR FED WILL TRIM STIMULUS

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/W/WORLD_MARKETS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-10-31-05-42-17

PARIS (AP) -- Fears that the U.S. Federal Reserve bank will begin cutting its stimulus to the American economy sooner than expected spooked world markets on Thursday, driving shares down.

The Fed's announcement that it would maintain its $85 billion monthly bond purchasing scheme was widely expected, and cheered, by investors. But the bank's economic outlook was rosier than anticipated and could indicate that it will begin to reduce those purchases - a process known as tapering - soon.

"The reason the markets are cautious today is because officials threw a spanner in the works when they hinted that tapering could occur earlier than many investors thought," said Shavaz Dhalla, a financial trader with Spreadex. "Policy officials argued that advancements in household spending as well as investments were encouraging despite a struggling housing market.

The Fed no longer expressed concern, as it did in September, that higher mortgage rates could hold back hiring and economic growth. And its statement made no reference to the 16-day government shutdown, which economists say slowed growth this quarter. Some analysts said that suggests tapering could begin early next year.

[xchrom]

6. Wall Street Firms Poised to Disappoint Bankers on Bonuses

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-31/wall-street-firms-poised-to-disappoint-bankers-on-bonuses.html

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), which set Wall Street pay records when stocks surged and cheap credit abounded in 2007, is again leading the industry as markets boom anew: putting aside less money for staff and more for investors.

Goldman Sachs, along with the investment-banking divisions of six of its biggest U.S. and European rivals, allocated a collective 39 percent of revenue for compensation in the first nine months, down from 42 percent a year earlier and the 50 percent some firms earmarked before the financial crisis. Goldman Sachs’s 41 percent ratio so far this year is its lowest nine-month figure as a public company.

Rising revenue at many banks is stoking employees’ hopes for larger bonuses, after year-end payouts were cut in the wake of the financial crisis and packed with restricted stock, which vests over time. Firms instead are preparing to shrink compensation for individuals amid investor pressure to improve return on equity. The measure of profitability stands at 10 percent or lower at each of the five biggest Wall Street banks - - less than half the levels that preceded the credit crisis.

“Someone’s going to be disappointed,” said Joe Jolson, co-founder and chief executive officer of JMP Group Inc. (JMP), the San Francisco-based investment bank. It will be “bankers that haven’t really been paid any real cash bonuses for five years, or the shareholders of these companies.”

[xchrom]

7. Counties Made for Horse and Buggy Reject Savings

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-31/counties-made-for-horse-and-buggy-reject-savings.html

Prosperity built the courthouse in Monroe County, Arkansas, when cotton gins and sharecropping in the Mississippi River Delta generated agricultural wealth to fund a robust local government.

Today, chipping paint in the main courtroom of the 1911 edifice detracts from the chandeliers and stained-glass dome soaring overhead. Atop the four-sided tower, the clocks each tell a different time. None is correct.

Monroe is hemorrhaging residents, like rural jurisdictions across the U.S. Yet these communities operate with the same layers of government as when horse-and-buggy travel helped determine the boundaries of the nation’s more than 3,000 counties. As population drops and infrastructure decays, officials and residents concerned about the loss of jobs and identity resist shrinking their government.

“People like that eye-to-eye contact,” said Monroe County Judge Larry Taylor, the top elected official in the county of 7,800. It has lost 44 percent of its population since 1980 as its main budget grew 9 percent, even when adjusted for inflation.

[xchrom]

8. Solar Rebound Beating Dot-Com Recovery as Demand Surges

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-31/solar-rebound-beating-dot-com-recovery-as-demand-surges.html

Solar industry manufacturers are rebounding from a two-year slump faster than technology companies recovered from the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s.

The benchmark BI Global Large Solar Energy Index of 15 manufacturers, which slumped 87 percent from a February 2011 peak through November 2012, has regained 55 percent of its value in the past year. The technology-dominated Nasdaq Composite index reached its post-bubble low in October 2002 and regained 37 percent of its March 2000 peak value in the next year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Suppliers including California’s SunPower Corp., which has gained more than fivefold this year, and China’s Yingli Green Energy Holding Co. are driving the rally as panel prices stabilize. Installations at power plants and on roofs will swell 40 percent this year from a 6.1 percent pace last year.

“The worst is probably behind us,” Jenny Chase, lead solar analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, said in an interview. “We’ve just gone through a big trough in solar supply.”

[xchrom]

9. Buffett’s $40 Billion Cash Pile Provides Acquisition Fuel

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-31/buffett-s-40-billion-cash-pile-provides-acquisition-fuel.html

Warren Buffett, who aims to have $20 billion in cash at his Berkshire Hathaway Inc., isn’t investing fast enough to keep money from piling up.

Berkshire will post a $4.3 billion third-quarter profit, according to an estimate from Barclays Plc, adding to a cash hoard of $35.7 billion at the end of June. Buffett also got back $4.4 billion this month that was lent to help Mars Inc. buy Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co. in 2008.

Even in a year in which the company has struck some of its largest deals and accelerated capital spending, Buffett still needs to find acquisitions. Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire has already invested $12.3 billion on a takeover of HJ Heinz Co., committed $5.6 billion to buy a Nevada electric utility and made smaller purchases through subsidiaries since Dec. 31.

“It’s a high-class problem,” said Cliff Gallant, an analyst at Nomura Holdings Inc. “The year’s not up. I wouldn’t be surprised to see another deal of some sort.”

[xchrom]

10. Yalies Yellen-Hamada Put Tobin Twist Theory to Work in QE

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-31/yalies-yellen-hamada-putting-tobin-s-twist-theory-to-work-in-qe.html

When James Tobin joined President John F. Kennedy’s administration in 1961, the U.S. economy was struggling to recover from its third recession in seven years. As a member of Kennedy’s Council of Economic Advisers, the Yale University professor put his theoretical research on asset markets to work in fashioning a novel strategy -- nicknamed Operation Twist -- to reduce long-term interest rates.

Now, more than half a century later, two of Tobin’s Ph.D. students -- Janet Yellen, nominated to be the next chairman of the Federal Reserve, and Koichi Hamada, a special adviser to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe -- are applying some of those same concepts in their efforts to boost their respective countries’ economies.

Tobin’s work on asset markets with fellow Yale professor William Brainard “is essentially the backbone of quantitative easing,” said Edwin Truman, a former Fed official who taught at the school in New Haven, Connecticut, from 1967 to 1972.

The portfolio-balance theory found that policy makers had the ability to affect the prices of individual assets by altering their supply and demand in the financial markets. And that in turn would have an impact on the economy.

[xchrom]

11. Euro-Area Inflation Unexpectedly Slows as Jobless Rises: Economy

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-31/euro-area-inflation-rate-unexpectedly-falls-to-lowest-since-2009.html

Euro-area inflation cooled to the slowest in almost four years in October, moving further away from the European Central Bank’s goal.

The annual rate fell to 0.7 percent, the lowest since November 2009, from 1.1 percent in September, the European Union’s statistics office in Luxembourg said in a preliminary estimate today. The median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey of 42 economists was for the rate to stay at 1.1 percent. Separate data today showed unemployment was at a record 12.2 percent in September.

The ECB has said there is a “subdued outlook” for price growth in the 17-nation euro region, and the October data marks the ninth straight month that the rate has been less than its 2 percent ceiling. While the economy has exited a recession and surveys have improved, unemployment is continuing to increase and the central bank predicts only a “gradual” recovery.

This “will fuel the debate about deflation risk and whether the ECB can and should do something against it,” said Holger Sandte, chief European analyst at Nordea Markets in Copenhagen. “The drop in inflation alone should not the push the ECB towards a rate cut. In our view, it needs weaker business-cycle indicators to make the ECB act.”

[xchrom]

12. US criticises Germany and China policies

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24753267


The US has criticised Germany's economic policies, saying that its export-led growth model is hurting the eurozone and the wider global economy.

In its bi-annual report, the US Treasury said that domestic demand growth in Germany had been "anaemic".

It also reiterated its view that the Chinese yuan continued to remain "significantly undervalued".

The report has criticised Chinese policy before, but criticism of German economic policy is rarer.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

13. ETA News Release: Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report (10/31/2013)

Source: Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration

Read More: http://www.dol.gov/opa/media/press/eta/ui/eta20132082.htm

UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE WEEKLY CLAIMS REPORT

SEASONALLY ADJUSTED DATA

In the week ending October 26, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 340,000, a decrease of 10,000 from the previous week's unrevised figure of 350,000. The 4-week moving average was 356,250, an increase of 8,000 from the previous week's unrevised average of 348,250.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.2 percent for the week ending October 19, unchanged from the prior week's unrevised rate. The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending October 19 was 2,881,000, an increase of 31,000 from the preceding week's revised level of 2,850,000. The 4-week moving average was 2,878,750, a decrease of 10,000 from the preceding week's revised average of 2,888,750.

UNADJUSTED DATA

....
The total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending October 12 was 3,896,214, an increase of 39,532 from the previous week. There were 5,035,367 persons claiming benefits in all programs in the comparable week in 2012.

== == == ==

Good morning, Freepers and DUers alike. I ask you to put aside your differences long enough to read this post. Following that, you can engage in your usual donnybrook.

I have been posting the number every week for at least a year. I seriously do not care if the week's data make Obama look good. They are just numbers, and I post them without regard to the consequences. I welcome people from Free Republic to examine the numbers as well. They paid for the work just as much as members of DU did, so I invite them to come on over and have a look. "The more the merrier" is the way I look at it.

I do not work at the ETA, and I do not know anyone working in that agency. I'm sure I can safely assume that the numbers are gathered and analyzed by career civil servant economists who do their work on a nonpartisan basis. Numbers are numbers, and let the chips fall where they may. If you feel that these economists are falling down on the job, drop them a line or give them a call. They work for you, not for any politician or political party.

The word "initial" is important. The report does not count all claims, just the new ones filed this week.

Note: The seasonal adjustment factors used for the UI Weekly Claims data from 2007 forward, along with the resulting seasonally adjusted values for initial claims and continuing claims, have been revised. These revised historical values, as well as the seasonal adjustment factors that will be used through calendar year 2012, can be accessed at the bottom of the following link: http://www.oui.doleta.gov/press/2012/032912.asp

[xchrom]

14. RBI Governor Rajan: India isn't in danger of crisis

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24740842

The new governor of the Reserve Bank of India, Raghuram Rajan, told the BBC in his first international interview that India has enough foreign-exchange reserves to safeguard against a repeat of the 1991 balance of payments crisis.

Mr Rajan said that India has enough money to pay for all of its short-term debts tomorrow if it needed to, as it has reserves that are equal to 15% of GDP. This is a key difference from two decades ago when the country was rescued by the IMF.

He said that a country with $280bn (£175bn) in reserves can finance itself, and points out that India's external debt is about 22% of GDP. He said that very few countries with such low level of debt has had an external crisis. Mr Rajan was also adamant about anyone who suggests that India should seek IMF assistance should know that there will be "no IMF, it's not going to happen". And that India is a creditor to the IMF.

He also points out that the current account and fiscal deficits are falling, which are the sources of concern and why some investors had left the country. It had resulted in the rupee hitting an all-time low shortly before Mr Rajan took office in early September. Since then, markets have risen strongly and the rupee has strengthened and is now approaching 60 rupees to the US dollar, leading what's been dubbed the Rajan rally.

[xchrom]

15. Europe Just Released A Horrific Set Of Unemployment Stats

http://www.businessinsider.com/euro-zone-unemployment-rate-hits-high-2013-10

Euro zone unemployment was a record-high 12.2% in September. August's number was revised up to 12.2% from an earlier estimate of 12.2%

Economists were hope for a 12.0% rate.

Spain's unemployment rate stood at a horrific 26.6%, and Italy's climbed to 12.5%.

Germany, on the other hand, saw its unemployment rate slip to 5.2%.

The youth unemployment rate climbed to 24.1% from 24.0%.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/euro-zone-unemployment-rate-hits-high-2013-10#ixzz2jJ8OeyMp

[AnneD]

20. That is the number they are admitting to....

bet the real numbers are higher.

[xchrom]

16. Gold And Treasuries Getting Slammed After Massive Chicago PMI Number

http://www.businessinsider.com/chicago-pmi-sends-bonds-lower-2013-10

The Chicago Fed's October Purchasing Managers Index was just released, and the number surged to 65.9 from the last month's 55.7 number. Economists were expecting it to decline slightly to 55.0.

The number suggests Midwest manufacturing is on fire, and Treasuries are taking a hit on the release.

10-year U.S. Treasury futures just went negative after spending most of the morning in the green. The yield on the 10-year note is trading at 2.54%, unchanged from yesterday's close.

Gold is trading at $1323 an ounce, down 2.0%.

Meanwhile, the S&P 500 is hedging higher, and the dollar is rising as well.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/chicago-pmi-sends-bonds-lower-2013-10#ixzz2jJ9YSSh8

[xchrom]

17. Obama's Approval Rating Has Plunged To An 'All-Time Low,' And The GOP's Has Tanked Even More

http://www.businessinsider.com/poll-obama-approval-ratings-gop-2013-10

President Barack Obama's approval rating has sunk to an all-time low in the NBC/Wall Street Journal's recurring survey — and the public's image of the Republican Party has reached another all-time low.

America's politicians continue to endure the fallout from so much dysfunction in Washington over the past month. For Republicans, the ire has been directed at them after the 17-day federal government shutdown, the U.S.'s first in 16 years, and a flirtation with breaching the nation's debt ceiling. According to the NBC/WSJ poll, only 22% view the GOP positively, compared with 53% who see it in a negative light.

And as the disastrous rollout of the Affordable Care Act continues, only 42% approve of the job Obama's doing as president, an all-time low in the survey. Meanwhile, 53% disapprove. Obama's favorability ratings have also reached negative territory for the first time ever in the poll — 41% view him positively, compared with 44% who see him in a negative light.

"The NBC/WSJ pollsters argue that no single reason explains Obama’s lower poll standing," NBC senior political editor Mark Murray wrote.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/poll-obama-approval-ratings-gop-2013-10#ixzz2jJAvHztg

[jtuck004]

24. The costume stores report that Obama masks sales are worse than predicted, but

Republican masks have zero demand. They aren't even stocking them.

[xchrom]

18. China Is Testing A Plan To Let Banks Package Loans Into Tradable Securities

http://www.businessinsider.com/china-is-testing-a-plan-to-let-banks-package-loans-into-tradable-securities-2013-10

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Chinese regulators have expanded a pilot plan allowing banks to package loans into tradable securities to include foreign banks, sources said.

Chinese policymakers see securitization as a tool to shift risk away from the banking system to reduce the chances of a financial crisis as economic growth slows and bad loans rise.

Securitization would also help satisfy voracious investor demand for alternatives to the chronically weak stock market and frothy property sector.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang told a cabinet meeting in late August that China would aggressively expand the securitization of credit assets.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/china-is-testing-a-plan-to-let-banks-package-loans-into-tradable-securities-2013-10#ixzz2jJC3vQE8

[AnneD]

19. Morning Marketeers

It has been a long time since I have addressed this thread. This year has been very hard as a School Nurse. My school is busy enough as it has grown from 350 to its current 850. It has not only grown in size but in complexity of health care needs. I have the usual asthmatics, diabetics, and ADHD kiddos. But this year I have had a kid out for a bone marrow transplant, a student that ended up in a psych facility after being abducted by a human trafficking ring in California, a student with DVT and bone infection over the summer that came back to school with very high doses of blood thinner, a student that I had to walk with mom until we got a medical diagnosis of Hashimoto Thyroid disease (they kept giving mom psych referrals), several autism spectrum disorder kids that are 'challenging' at best. and some MI kids that should be a 1:1 but staffing is way too thin (one kid has run off the campus with staff in hot pursuit-he runs right into street and I have nightmares of him getting hit by a texting driver). You get the picture. And if that weren't bad enough, I have more paperwork come down from on high. Instead of hiring more people to do all this work, they think doing more paperwork will cover their asses.

I am buying the last of my TRS time. I knew it was 10 years and I will have it bought back in December or earlier. I looked on my statement and it says I have 10 years...so that makes 20. I thought I could retire with 20 years. Now, math has never been my strong suit but I have always been able to do drug calculations and I follow Economics as a hobby. I was going through the online calculator when I realized that I received a certificate last year for 15 years of service. Now it was a nice piece of paper but I know these folks are cheap and would not have even given me a nice piece of paper unless I earned it. So I started doing some math. It is not final but I do believe that I have almost 25 years of service....which really bumped up my annuity pension check. So the long and short of it is that I am retiring this year. I haven't decided it I want to go in January or stay until May.

I am young and healthy so I think I will possibly get a certification in wound care and start making some real money for a few years before I really retire.

Happy Hunting and watch out for the bears.....

[xchrom]

21. happy Diwali!

[DemReadingDU]

22. Woot!

Hope everything works out, you've earned that retirement!

[AnneD]

23. I should get ....

double time for this year!
Yesterday was a half day for me. This was everything I did before the kids were dismissed before 12:45.

Chase down the teacher of the field trip to give her the medicines for students going on field trip. (I had to prepare everything-30 min).

Completed and faxed a workman claim comp from an aid that was badly mauled by a student. Our school police officer had to handcuff her to prevent her from injuring herself or other kids.

Saw 8 kids-one sent home with a fever, one with a broken toe (Had to bring her to the clinic via wheelchair). Had to do multiple calls to get parents.

Give 4 meds and 2 asthma treatments.

A telephone conference for homebound services for student. Sent third e-mail to get home work for kid.

Fielded a panicked call from the lead teacher of the field trip because a student got his shoe laces caught in the elevator and hurt his ankle. Teacher sent me a photo via her smart phone for me to triage. Thank GOD it was just a huge hickie and nothing more.

Received a call on my personal cell phone from the Karate teacher (how did he get that number). Seems one of his student had a bad case of jock itch and want to know if I needed to see the student and what I could do

Needless to say I sat down and had my lunch (as always the last person) and then went to the faculty meeting. I was underwhelmed at the meeting.