Market briefing --- Matt (slow)
Employment rate --- Su (fast)
NYSE --- Deb (fast)
Nasdaq --- Julia (slow)
welcome to “world financial report.” i am matt nesto. more evidence of u.s. economic recovery continuing here. the economy adding 248,000,000 workers in the month of may as the employment rate held steady at 5.6% -- 248,000 more workers.
>> and the u.s. economy has added 1.2 million jobs so far this year. that is the best five months of job growth since 2000. in addition to adding the 248,000 jobs in may, the government revised march and april payrolls higher. americans are working the most hours in 3 1/2 years.
>> the so-called jobless recovery that really was plaguing us in 2002 and 2003 2003 has finally been left in the dust. we are creating jobs.
>> certainly it’s not 1999 yet but it’s starting to move in that direction. not only are we starting to create, you know, on average, 250,000 per month or so, but wage inflation is picking up, more incoming generated in the economy.
>> and may’s payroll figure topped the 225,000 estimate of economists surveyed by bloomberg. the growth was helped by the biggest gain in manufacturing jobs in almost six years, adding 32,000 jobs, the fourth straight increase. service and construction employment increasing. the only major category with losses was government payrolls down 27,000 in may.
>> one of the interesting things about this month’s numbers is that the private sector jobs are up more than the total job numbers, which is a commentary on the fact that these jobs are coming out of the businesses of america.
>> and the brighter employment picture gives president bush’s re-election campaign a boost when record gas prices and the war in iraq are straining optimism.
>> they moved accommodative policy aggressively and helped support the economy but what do they do going forward?
>> economic adviser to john kerry says the u.s. economy is still not regaining all the jobs lost during the bush presidency. bloomberg data says the u.s. has yet to recover 1.2 million jobs lost during bush’s term. meanwhile, one economist says the jobs report should erase any doubt that the fed will raise interest rates this month when they meet june 30.
>> job cuts were the word of the day on maytag. the household appliance maker saying it will eliminate 20% of its salaried work force due to declining sales. it has lowered its earnings forecast for the year as it will merge as hoover floor care and appliances units with headquarters to trim costs. checking on shares, down about 8%. that works out to about 1100 jobs. let’s get the closing numbers this friday on wall street. the dow and s&p both up .5%. the nasdaq not quite 1% on the day. we take a quick check on the volume at the nyse, 1.1 billion, light volume. the word, similar light volume at the nasdaq. where did half a billion shares go? the average year to date for the volume average on the nasdaq is still 1.9 billion. we haven’t been above that for weeks. if we look at the broader indexes here, .75% for the nyse composite, .5% for the amex and small cap shares also just about 1% higher. one last equity index to look at, 15%, 5 -- .5% higher, the wilshire 5000. and bonds not surprisingly reacting porly to the better-than-expected jobs data today. the jobs report and intel certainly big themes on wall street today and all week by some arguments. deb kostroun has the details.
>> that’s exactly right. it seemed the market was focused not only on oil this week, because we got the opec production levels increased yesterday but also everyone was waiting on the jobs report and the jobs report confirmed that we have a pretty good pace, now, of jobs created. stocks were up after the strong jobs report, as carmen was talking about, the economy recouping the jobs lost since the recession ended november 2001. the other big story on wall street, semiconductors up for the first time this week as intel says their sales forecast at the higher end of the range. the thing that intel said increased demand coming from asia, down all week today, was the first update. flash memory chips used in things like phones, also phones with digital cameras and color screens, that is the thing helping out intel. a very positive day for many of the tech, not only semiconductors, but that really helps out tech, because semiconductors, that was the biggest drag for the week. material stocks, material stocks were lower generally for the week. another big laggard throughout the week. they closed out friday well% because all of the anticipation up to the jobs report, a lot of questions about how strong the economy is right now because this also will tell us what the fed will be doing at the end of the month with interest rates and the jobs report, as many traders told me, really said that what the fed may be doing. they may be increasing interest rates by .25 point, coming at a good pace because the jobs report wasn’t stronger than expected. consumer stocks like eastman kodak. looking at that, eastman kodak saying that sales of disposable cameras are falling for the first time. eastman kodak ended higher, however, consumer products% -having a difficult time and crude oil and energy, another big story, likely to be another big story. opec increasing their production and for the past few days since tuesday, crude oil is down 9%, that after opec increasing production, helping out and easing summer gasoline supplies. back to you.
>> thank you very much. as we said, the nasdaq gained just about double that of the dow and s&p today, helped by semiconductor shares due to intel’s mid quarter update. julie hyman has a wrap-up report from the nasdaq marketsite in times square.
>> nasdaq had a late-day dip in trading today in the price of the index, the levels of the index. however, we had a surge in volume as we headed into the end of the session. still did not make the average for the year which has been a trend over the last month or so. it’s been more than 20 days since we had a trading day above the average volume on the year. that said, we still finished the day higher .9%, 18 points. but we did finish the week lower for the nasdaq by about .4%. the best performer on the week was the transportation group and the worst performer was the computer-related index. that includes semiconductor shares. the philadelphia semiconductor index down 3.7% this week despite a gain in today’s session due to intel. let’s talk about intel as it helped the index today. in addition to the better-than-expected unemployment report, intel came out with its mid quarter update after the market closed yesterday and raised the range of its sales forecast to the upper end of a previously announced range, which was better than analysts expected. it helped intel as well as other semiconductor companies, including altera, xilinx, broadcom, applied micro circuits and the philadelphia semiconductor index. another chipmaker out today with news, p.m.c. sierra expecting fiscal second-quarter revenue to meet or exceed the top end of a forecast the company made in april. it did not help those shares as much as aided intel shares. semiconductor equipment makers also higher today. applied materials, kla-tencor and novellus benefitting from the intel effect. we saw the intel effect as well as the better-than-expected unemployment report, which shows sign was a strong economy. back to you.
>> our next guest says one of the strongest areas of the labor market is temporary staffing. the consulting and staffing analyst with william blair will tell us if the area will continue to grow.
