Market Summary

A decline on Wall Street turned into a sharp selloff in the final minutes of trading Thursday, sending the market to its worst day since the beggning of the 3rd quarter. The blue chips, which have been trading in a pretty narrow range, fell to their lowest levels in nearly a month after the Dow fell 203.00, or 2.1 percent, to 9,509.28. The broader Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 27.23, or 2.6 percent, to 1,029.85, and the Nasdaq composite index dropped 64.94, or 3.1 percent, to 2,057.48. The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 20.53, or 3.4 percent, to 583.75.

Tomorrow in the premarket the wonderful people at the Labor Department will bring us September’s Employment Situation. The confidence doesn’t seem to high right about now, as the market has fallen 6 out of the last 7 sessions.

Despite the fall in equities, rise in bond prices and the greenback, light, sweet crude rose 21 cents to settle at $70.82 a barrel on the NYMEX.

Jobless Claims Rise

The latest worries erupted when the Labor Department said new claims for jobless benefits rose last week to 551,000. It was an unexpected 17,000 rise in the reading heading into tomorrow’s employment report for September. The jobless claims report showed the four-week moving average of initial applications fell to 548,500 last week from 554,250. In addition, continuing claims rose 2.9 percent to 3.7 million.

GE Close to Selling NBC

Comcast Corporation (CMCSA) is in discussions with General Electric Co (GE), which owns 80% of NBC, about joint ownership of the business, which is valued by analysts at $30bn-$35bn. Under the arrangement being discussed, NBC Universal would be spun off into a standalone company, with Comcast owning 51% and GE holding 49%.

Hmmm so let’s see, do shareholders like it? Comcast fell 7.17% to $15.67 during trading today. I would say that’s a pretty emphatic no against the worst of the 3 major networks…