Market Summary

Not much of anything in trading Tuesday on Wall Street. The blue chips did manage their 5th consecutive gain, climbing to a new high for 2009. The Dow rose 20.03, or 0.2 percent, to 10,246.97. The broader Standard & Poor’s 500 index saw its first decline after 6 advances, slipping 0.07, or less than 0.1 percent, to 1,093.01. The tech heavy Nasdaq composite index fell 2.98, or 0.1 percent, to 2,151.08. The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 5.38, or 0.9 percent, to 586.93.

No economic data, nothing notable on the corporate front to drive the market after a nearly 5% gain over the past week. The break by traders could last tomorrow through the Veteran’s Day holiday. Although the exchange and futures market is open, the Federal Reserve will be closed.

Crude oil fell 38 cents to settle at $79.05 per barrel on the NYMEX; while the dollar held its ground in the ForEx market.

Adobe Say Adios

Adobe Systems Inc (ADBE) announced the elimination of 9% of its workforce summing 680 jobs. It’s the Wall Street way, can’t grow the top line, so cut costs to meet the bottom line. The job cuts relate only to Adobe employees before the company, based in San Jose, Calif., bought Omniture Inc. in October.

There are about 6.1 unemployed workers, on average, competing for each job opening, a Labor Department report shows. That’s down slightly from 6.2 last month, the most since the department began tracking job openings nine years ago.

It’s a sharp increase from only 1.7 workers per opening when the recession began in December 2007.
So we have 10.2% unemployment, which is the highest level in 26 years.

Quote of the Day

Janet Yellen, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco

“With such a slow rebound, unemployment could well stay high for several years to come,” “In other words, our recovery is likely to feel like something well short of good times.”

Yellen envisions the shape of the recovery kind of like an “L” with a gradual upward tilt of the base.

So weak employment and GDP growth, hmm how are we going to raise enough revenue to pay off this massive national debt, which threatens the economy? People talk about the dollar, who cares? It’s the dumb person argument about high deficit spending,. The real problem is high interest rates to fund the deficit, and in turn making borrowing costs too expensive for businesses and individuals to drive growth.