Crash this week?

Another Jobs Loss May Sink Stocks Again
Sunday March 30, 3:17 pm ET
By Madlen Read, AP Business Writer
Investors Await Data on Jobs, Manufacturing to See if They're Correctly Assessing the Economy

NEW YORK (AP) -- Stocks may already be pricing in a recession, but they haven't priced in a very deep one. If this week's data on the job market and manufacturing are worse than Wall Street is anticipating, investors should not be surprised to see another tumble.

To be sure, the stock market is usually pretty adept at sizing up the economy. And many market experts are saying stocks may have already hit bottom. But considering how much mystery still surrounds the mortgage crisis -- not to mention the fact that many analysts are starting to pare back their estimates for 2008 corporate profits -- calling the stock market's decline over is a bit premature.

Last week began with a rally and ended with a sell-off after a batch of economic readings gave investors little to cheer about. The Dow Jones industrial average finished the week down 1.17 percent, the Standard & Poor's 500 index ended up 0.14 percent, and the Nasdaq composite index ended down 1.07 percent.

This Friday, the market expects the Labor Department to report that payrolls fell by about 50,000 in March after a 63,000 drop in February, according to the median estimate of economists surveyed by Thomson Financial/IFR. Economists also predict the unemployment rate will rise back up to 5 percent from February's 4.8 percent.

"If you start seeing deterioration in employment, it's very, very hard not to have a recession," said Jay Mueller, economist at Strong Capital Management.

Historically, recessions have brought several back-to-back drops in payrolls, an unemployment rate persistently above 5 percent and initial unemployment claims that top about 400,000 a week, Mueller said.

Right now, the job market is not quite near recession-level trends, but it's close: Unemployment briefly hit 5 percent late last year, jobless claims have recently been in the 350,000 to 375,000 range, and payrolls have decreased for two months in a row.

The uncertainty surrounding the U.S. employment picture in turn means that consumer spending and consumer credit trends are largely indeterminable. So even in a best-case scenario -- a strong jobs report alongside other strong data -- the stock market might see a brief pop but then remain in a holding pattern for the next few months until it is sure that the economy's weak period is a short one.

"It seems more likely that things are going to be range dominated until we get a bit more clarity," said Jack Caffrey, equities strategist at JPMorgan Private Bank.

So for now, investors can expect more big swings, but little sense of direction until first-quarter earnings reports -- along with their outlooks for the rest of the year -- are released next month.

This week starts with the Chicago Purchasing Managers' manufacturing report on Monday, which is expected to show a smaller contraction for March than it did in February.

On Tuesday, the Institute for Supply Management releases its national manufacturing report, and the market anticipates a shallow contraction for March, similar to February's.

Then on Thursday, the ISM reports on the service sector, which is expected to post a minor contraction for March, as it did the previous month.

Reuters German watchdog eyes $600 bln global bank losses: report Saturday March 29, 10:18 am ET FRANKFURT (Reuters) - The financial market crisis could cause losses of up to $600 billion at banks and other financial institutions worldwide, a German magazine reported on Saturday, citing an internal report by German financial watchdog BaFin. The $600 billion figure represents a worst-case scenario for losses linked to the financial turmoil sparked by the meltdown in the U.S. subprime mortgage market, Der Spiegel magazine said in a story released in advance of publication on Monday. "Based on current knowledge and the market situation, we believe $430 billion is more likely," the magazine quoted what it said was a 16-page report by BaFin as saying. BaFin calculated that banks had already acknowledged about $295 billion in losses, of which Germany accounted for around 10 percent, the magazine said. Extrapolating from this percentage, German banks could suffer $60 billion in losses in the worst case and $43 billion in the more favorable scenario, the magazine added. However, the magazine also said BaFin cited the risk that the financial crisis could spread beyond the banking sector to affect hedge funds, insurance companies, pension funds and even some non-financial companies. A BaFin spokeswoman declined to comment on the Spiegel report but said the watchdog had prepared a discussion paper ahead of a two-day meeting of financial regulators and central bankers in Rome that ended on Saturday. A figure of around $300 billion for losses reported to date came from publicly available sources, she said. German mass-circulation Bild newspaper reported on Friday that German banks could face as much as 70 billion euros ($110 billion) in writedowns on their investments as a result of the credit crisis, citing "speculation by banking insiders" for the report. A spokesman for Germany's Finance Ministry on Friday also said worldwide losses so far were about $300 billion but said he was not aware of the 70 billion euro figure mentioned in Bild. Germany's big listed banks such as Deutsche Bank (XETRA:DBKGN.DE - News), Commerzbank (XETRA:CBKG.DE - News) and Deutsche Postbank (XETRA:DPBGN.DE - News) have largely escaped the huge subprime-related writedowns seen at some international rivals. However, the country's state-sector banks have been hit hard, with two of their number nearly collapsing after billions of euros in risky investments turned bad. (Reporting by Jonathan Gould)

watch the sky.......snort

"watch the sky.......snort " Happy now, gentlemen?

Well here the 3 of you are...all in one place again. Maybe if you predict "crash" it will do the opposite eh? IT

Well here the 3 of you are...all in one place again. Maybe if you predict "crash" it will do the opposite eh?

IT

Ouuu IndexTrader, what am I gonna doooo... if the market unloads on me, I am gonna be wiped out

Another Jobs Loss May Sink Stocks Again
Sunday March 30, 3:17 pm ET
By Madlen Read, AP Business Writer
Investors Await Data on Jobs, Manufacturing to See if They're Correctly Assessing the Economy

NEW YORK (AP) -- Stocks may already be pricing in a recession, but they haven't priced in a very deep one. If this week's data on the job market and manufacturing are worse than Wall Street is anticipating, investors should not be surprised to see another tumble.

To be sure, the stock market is usually pretty adept at sizing up the economy. And many market experts are saying stocks may have already hit bottom. But considering how much mystery still surrounds the mortgage crisis -- not to mention the fact that many analysts are starting to pare back their estimates for 2008 corporate profits -- calling the stock market's decline over is a bit premature.

Last week began with a rally and ended with a sell-off after a batch of economic readings gave investors little to cheer about. The Dow Jones industrial average finished the week down 1.17 percent, the Standard & Poor's 500 index ended up 0.14 percent, and the Nasdaq composite index ended down 1.07 percent.

This Friday, the market expects the Labor Department to report that payrolls fell by about 50,000 in March after a 63,000 drop in February, according to the median estimate of economists surveyed by Thomson Financial/IFR. Economists also predict the unemployment rate will rise back up to 5 percent from February's 4.8 percent.

"If you start seeing deterioration in employment, it's very, very hard not to have a recession," said Jay Mueller, economist at Strong Capital Management.

Historically, recessions have brought several back-to-back drops in payrolls, an unemployment rate persistently above 5 percent and initial unemployment claims that top about 400,000 a week, Mueller said.

Right now, the job market is not quite near recession-level trends, but it's close: Unemployment briefly hit 5 percent late last year, jobless claims have recently been in the 350,000 to 375,000 range, and payrolls have decreased for two months in a row.

The uncertainty surrounding the U.S. employment picture in turn means that consumer spending and consumer credit trends are largely indeterminable. So even in a best-case scenario -- a strong jobs report alongside other strong data -- the stock market might see a brief pop but then remain in a holding pattern for the next few months until it is sure that the economy's weak period is a short one.

"It seems more likely that things are going to be range dominated until we get a bit more clarity," said Jack Caffrey, equities strategist at JPMorgan Private Bank.

So for now, investors can expect more big swings, but little sense of direction until first-quarter earnings reports -- along with their outlooks for the rest of the year -- are released next month.

This week starts with the Chicago Purchasing Managers' manufacturing report on Monday, which is expected to show a smaller contraction for March than it did in February.

On Tuesday, the Institute for Supply Management releases its national manufacturing report, and the market anticipates a shallow contraction for March, similar to February's.

Then on Thursday, the ISM reports on the service sector, which is expected to post a minor contraction for March, as it did the previous month.

This would have been an interesting article 3-6 months ago. Now it's the writings of an elephant dung scooper.

Edited by milbank, 30 March 2008 - 05:53 PM.

I don't know about this week, but over the coming weeks, Crash? Absolutely! It's commminnnnnnnnn

Well here the 3 of you are...all in one place again. Maybe if you predict "crash" it will do the opposite eh?

IT

Ouuu IndexTrader, what am I gonna doooo... if the market unloads on me, I am gonna be wiped out

I don't have any idea whether you're gonna be wiped out. Only you know that. All I know is that all your buys are underwater, except the NQ. You been in some of them for 2 months...not exactly a great investment eh? And sooner or later, perhaps not this week, but ultimately we'll probably make new lows.

IT

Edited by IndexTrader, 30 March 2008 - 08:20 PM.

lmao.......2 months....geeziz.......eh.......that long?....:>)