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pre-market data.

Market crash for Mon?

Investors seeking reason for optimism after the worst stock-market sell-off since the 2008 financial crisis probably won't find it in Friday's July jobs report. Economists forecast that employers added only 90,000 jobs last month and that the unemployment rate was unchanged at 9.2 percent, according to a survey by FactSet. That would mark an improvement over the 18,000 net jobs created in June — the fewest in nine months — and the 25,000 in May. But over time, 90,000 new jobs a month wouldn't even be enough to keep the unemployment rate from rising. Nor would it erase fears on...

Stayin’ Alive: Dow just misses ’78 losing streakPAUL WISEMAN, AP Economics Writer Thursday, August 4, 2011 Not since the Bee Gees and their “Saturday Night Fever” soundtrack dominated the radio has the Dow Jones industrial average endured a longer losing streak. The Dow blipped up 30 points Wednesday, ending a string of down days at eight. Until the last few minutes of trading, it looked as if stocks might match a nine-day losing streak that ended on Feb. 22, 1978. Weighing on stocks 33 years ago: A stalemate in Congress. A weakening economy. Fears about the global financial system. Sound...

White House on worst market drop since 2008: ‘Markets go up and down’ 1 hr 5 mins ago The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped by 512 points Thursday, erasing this year’s market gains, but the White House had little to say besides “markets go up and down.” “I don’t have a specific reaction to the market. Markets go up and down,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said. “There is no question that we have — this economy has faced headwinds this year, a variety of them including the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the increase in oil prices, energy...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Why am I here today? This always happens. Every time we have one of these national holidays, nobody tells me. I don't keep track of national holidays. Obama's birthday. I don't keep track of national holidays, nobody ever tells me, and I end up being the only person in the country working. Why is the Dow going down? Let me tell you why the Dow is going down, is because there's a story out there that said that Bernanke and Obama are out of bullets. There's a story that says Bernanke and Obama are out of bullets,...

The stock market is finishing its worst day since the financial crisis. The Dow Jones industrial average plunged more than 500 points Thursday. Investors are concerned that the U.S. economy will enter another recession and that Europe's debt problems are not closed to being solved. Major stock indexes fell more than 4 percent. The Dow is closing with a loss of 513 points, or 4.3 percent, to 11,384. It was the worst day for the Dow since October 22, 2008. The S&P 500 is down 60, or 4.8 percent, to 1,200. The Nasdaq is down 137, or 5.1 percent, to...

NEW YORK -- Stocks plunged Thursday, with the Dow tumbling 400 points to hit its lowest level since December, as global economic fears gripped the market. U.S. markets were already sharply lower on widespread worries, including the weak job market. But the selling gained momentum as Japanese and European policymakers stepped in with dramatic measures to shore up their financial markets. There's "total fear" in the market, said Bob Doll, chief equity strategist at the world's largest money manager, BlackRock. All three major indexes tumbled more than 3% Thursday and erased all their gains for the year. The indexes have...

Stocks tumbled Friday after employment rose far less than expected, shattering hopes that the economy was starting to regain momentum following a soft patch in the first half of the year. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slid almost 1 percent, led by Caterpillar [CAT 109.30 -2.33 (-2.09%) ] and GE [GE 18.9671 -0.3329 (-1.72%) ] after finishing almost 100 points higher in the previous session. The S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq also plunged. The CBOE Volatility Index, widely considered the best gauge of fear in the market, jumped above 16.

Why the Dow will end up plunging to 7,000 By Douglas A. McIntyre There are too many financial risks on the horizon that are being dismissed One theory of economics says that any market can return to a point where it has been in the past. The Great Recession was, by some measures as bad as the Great Depression. Unemployment was 3.6 percent in November 1966. It was at 4 percent in December 1999. There is no precedent for zero unemployment, but those two periods came close. Recent movements in the stock market could repeat themselves as the economy lurches...

I was thinking about various tax reforms and asked myself: If we eliminate the capital gains tax, would it hurt or help the economy as a whole, and the financial markets themselves? I'm looking for some opinions. Since there is no specific proposal I guess this is a vanity. On one hand, if eliminating the tax would cause a mass sell-off, it could crash the Dow. On the other hand, if it simply meant people would sell off stocks they've made healthy gains in to immediately buy other investments, it could either wash or have a positive effect. It may...

Dow Chemical Co. officials said Thursday adding former Gov. Jennifer Granholm to the company’s board of directors gives the chemical giant some new political savvy as it pursues its business agenda for the 21st century. “Granholm’s track record fits very well with Dow’s focus, and we believe she is going to bring some valued insight to our board,” said Dow Chemical spokeswoman Rebecca Bentley.

The front page of Section R of the March 14 edition of The Wall Street Journal was devoted to the pros and cons of investing in gold. The section posed the question, “Is gold a good investment?” It then, of course, presented two different points of view. One writer, a certified financial planner, answered, “Yes.” The other author, a chief investment officer, said, “No.” A better answer to the WSJ’s question would be, “Gold had better not be a good investment, because if it is, we are in for a dismal economy.” Of course, by the time that the WSJ...

This Meltdown In Markets Is Not Just Caused By Reactors Daniel Alpert, Westwood Capital Mar. 16, 2011, 6:45 PM Daniel Alpert is a founding Managing Director of Westwood Capital, an investment bank and advisory firm Those who think the meltdown in the markets is anything more than catalyzed by nuclear “meltdowns” in Japan (on the cusp of the toppling of some petty tyrants) are in need of some X-radiation on their brains to see what’s wrong (i.e. need to have their heads examined). There have been two liquid tsunami’s – one of sea water and the other of C notes...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Libya's escalating political crisis sparked a sell-off in U.S. stocks Tuesday, with the Dow down more than 200 points during the final hour of trading, as oil prices continued to skyrocket. Ongoing weakness in the housing market also added pressure after a report showed that national home prices fell 4.1% during the fourth quarter of 2010. The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) was down 205 points, or 1.7%. Wal-Mart (WMT, Fortune 500) was one of the worst performers on the Dow, with shares down almost 4% after the retailer reported disappointing U.S. sales figures. The S&P...

Someone has to say it: “Doomsters, you have been wrong now for nearly two years. Why not shut up?” On the one hand doomsters are very profitable for me because they represent the sentiment that makes stocks cheap for me to buy. However, on the other hand, I’m fed up with the bearish pollution sloshing around the media. Are these doomsters making money? If so, how? Of course there are problems, were problems, will be problems. But the credit crunch crash is dead and we are now healing. We will be healing for more years to come. The market will...

CNN Stock futures page shows DOW futures down 189 points. Don't believe that is correct. Bloomberg site shows them up 24 points. Which is correct?

The stock market is all about nominal prices. That is, prices that aren't adjusted for inflation or what analysts call "relative performance" -- how an investment has fared when compared with competing assets. While this may seem like a parlor game, comparing how investments fare over time is a key element in portfolio management. Relative performance boils down to this: Sell assets that are historically overpriced, and buy assets that are historically underpriced. The equities industry and the financial media tend to shy away from relative-performance analyses, and a few charts help explain this reticence. But in short, when adjusted...