Market Summary

A drop in consumer sentiment, and concern over lack of increasing revenue from major components sent stocks tumbling Friday. The Dow fell 67.03, or 0.7 percent, to 9,995.91. The broader S&P 500 index fell 8.88, or 0.8 percent, to 1,087.68, and the Nasdaq composite index fell 16.49, or 0.8 percent, to 2,156.80. The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 7.16, or 1.2 percent, to 616.18. I think it would have been extremely important and a real bullish sign if the blue chips were able to close the week above the 10K mark, Falling just short with high downward volume in the last few minutes of trading could send the market down a few technical notches.

Crude oil rose 95 cents to settle at $78.53 a barrel on the NYMEX. Oil rose more than 9 percent during the week. The energy sector led a rebound during the trading day, as the blue chips had been down as much as 123 during the session.

It was still a very productive week on the street, as strong quarterly reports sent all three major averages green. The Dow rose 1.3 percent, the S&P 500 index added 1.5 percent and the Nasdaq rose 0.8 percent.

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Only 46% of people aged 16-24 had jobs in September, the lowest since the government began counting in 1948.

Most analyses of youth employment focus on people aged 16 to 24, which includes everyone from high school dropouts to wet-behind-the-ears college grads. But in this era of rising educational requirements, some people don’t start their careers until their mid or late 20s — and these young college grads are taking it on the chin as well.

According to a BusinessWeek analysis, college graduates aged 22 to 27 have fared worse than their older educated peers during the downturn. Two years ago, 84.4% of young grads had jobs, only somewhat lower than the 86.8% figure for college graduates aged 28 to 50. Since then, the employment gap between the two groups has almost doubled.

For each percentage-point rise in the unemployment rate, those who graduated during a recession earned 6% to 7% less in their first year of employment than their more fortunate counterparts. Even 15 years out of school, the recession graduates earned 2.5% less than those who began working in more prosperous times.

So here we are, Dow hovering around the 10K mark, but what is the real signal here? We first crossed this mark over 10 years ago, March of 1999 during the tech boom; and earlier this decade during the housing bubble. Now we have double digit unemployment, and most likely a treasury and commercial real estate bubble on our hands…