Update #3/ Week of 11/22/2010 News FROM ARA MELKONIANS

Good Morning Everyone and Happy Wednesday! We caught a little break yesterday with credit markets improving one extra day for the week. All bets were on credit markets moving well into a safe place ahead of the holiday, but with the help of some sabre-rattling in Korea, equities sold off yesterday and credit markets actually improved. Today, we're on the typical day-before-a-holiday program with credit markets way off into a safe place and back-East traders leaving the office to get a head start on the commute.

Helping stock markets make up the losses from yesterday is the Initial jobless claims report for the week ending Nov 20 which totaled 407K. This figure is down 34K week-over-week and less than the 442K initial claims that had been widely expected. Continuing claims came down to 4.18 million from 4.32 million. Both reports mark a 2 year low for this economic bell weather.

Separately, personal income increased 0.5% in October, besting expectations of an increase of 0.4% after no change was recorded for the prior month. Spending for October increased 0.4%, which is weaker than the 0.6% increase that had been expected to follow a 0.3% increase for the prior month. Core personal consumption expenditures were flat for October.

The final Consumer Sentiment Survey for November from the University of Michigan improved to 71.6 after a preliminary reading of 69.3. New home sales, however, for October fell 8.1% month-over-month to an annualized rate of 283K units, quite a miss from the rate of 314K units that had been expected. This housing news may have brought the early rally to a stop, but equity markets have pretty much made up the losses from yesterday, so they should be happy to take the gains and get out of town.

I hope all of you have a terrific Thanksgiving tomorrow with your family and friends!

Ara Melkonians