Update #3/ Week of November 2, 2009

Good Morning Everyone and Happy Wednesday! A decent report from the ADP gives some encouragement to those looking for the unemployment numbers to be released later this week. Bulls on Wall Street are taking advantage of the somewhat good news (basically, the “not bad news”) to sneak in some gains ahead of the FOMC announcement and attempt once again to recoup the losses from last Friday. The Dow shot up right out of the gate on news that the ADP reported job losses of 203,000 from the private sector in the month of October, slightly worse than the 198,000 job losses anticipated. Isn’t that great news!? A stock market rally is definitely in order, don’t you think?

The Dow shot up to about +140 points and then knocked it’s head on that invisible ceiling to which we have so often recently referred. Nobody seems to know where that ceiling is, but when we hit it, we sure have a hard time getting past it for the rest of the day. The ISM Services Index reported a reading of 50.6, not quite the 51.5 widely anticipated and down a bit from the 50.9 in September . . . another reason for the scratching of our cumulative heads watching the stock market rally. We do have a weaker dollar, and that always helps stocks, but this just seems unreasonable.

The credit markets are waiting anxiously for the FOMC statement release due in about and hour and ½ and that could move markets. Everybody expects the Feds to keep lending rates the same, but the statement is always what traders want to read to see where the Feds think we are heading in the future. Rates have actually done pretty well this week, considering all the hoopla. Rates, after losing a little ground yesterday, are an .125 or less in rebate worse this morning. Not too bad. We’ll wait and see how things look in a couple hours.
I will be here all day today to help you out in way I can . . . call me here or better yet email me. Have a terrific Humpday