news from ARA MELKONIANS/ Update #4/ Week of August 30, 2010

Good Afternoon Everyone and Happy Thursday! Although equity markets are flat this morning, credit markets continue to give back a little ground as treasuries started the day off on the wrong side of the flat line. Traders are quiet today awaiting the big announcement tomorrow morning on payrolls and unemployment. Yesterday turned out to be quite the winning day for bullish traders on Wall Street with the S&P surging 3% on the first day of September.

Yesterday's rally was a bit of a surprise considering most of the economic news wasn't all that favorable. By the end of the day we learned that auto sales as a whole had their worst August since 1983 -- our country's last double dip recession. This morning's Initial jobless claims for the week ending August 28 totaled 472,000, which is in step with the 475,000 initial claims that had been widely expected. Initial claims for the prior week totaled 478,000. Continuing claims slipped to 4.46 million from 4.48 million. No big news here, and subsequently, little reaction on the trading floors.

Nonfarm productivity in the second quarter fell 1.8%, which is essentially on par with the 1.7% decline that had been broadly anticipated. Unit labor costs increased 1.1%, as expected, during the second quarter. So, with no earth shaking (market moving) news on the wires this morning, everyone seems to be happy to take a breather and wait for tomorrow's announcement from the Labor Dept. The bulls, I'm sure, are just thankful to hold on to the gains from yesterday.

Pricing is yet a little worse than yesterday's pricing, but who's complaining? These rates are incredible! I hope you all have a terrific Thursday!