Argus

Did We Say Monday?

Stocks rallied again on Friday primarily in anticipation of the new administration’s plans to jumpstart the economy and continue bailing out the banks. The thinking at the time was that the stimulus bill looked to be a done deal in the Senate and the much ballyhooed comprehensive financial bailout plan was to finally be unveiled on Monday. So, with the possibility for something good to happen over the weekend, traders covered shorts and those feeling upbeat about the future did a little buying.

However, the big story of the day was the horrific jobs report, from which we learned that the economy shed the most jobs since 1974 and the unemployment rate hit a 17-year high. There was virtually no good news to be found in the report and it is assumed that there will be more bad news on the employment front in the months ...

Better Late Than Never

Although there were most certainly other stories worthy of mention yesterday, from where I sit at least, the game is still all about what’s going on in Washington. First, there’s the political fun and games over the not-so stimulative stimulus bill as Congress seems to be getting back into the swing of the game of partisan politics. And then there’s the main event – the “we’ll talk about it next week” solution to the credit crisis that may or may not, but probably will, include a “bad bank” solution.

To be sure, we got some interesting economic data yesterday, with some of it actually winding up on the positive side of the ledger. And as always, the earnings parade was fun to watch. Then, the fact that tech stocks simply went the other way during the Dow’s early morning dive is definitely worth noting. But, make ...