U.S. employers added 943,000 jobs in July - The Department of Labor and Statics reported that 943,000 new jobs were added in July. That exceeded the 845,000 new jobs experts predicted. Average hourly wages rose 4% year over year. The unemployment rate was 5.4% in July, down from 5.9% in June. It has fallen from a high of 14.8% at the start of the pandemic, but is a long way off from its 3.5% rate...
Stock markets closed the week at or near record highs – The week began with the largest one day point drop since October marking five straight days of declines. This was due to fears of rising COVID cases. It has become evident that COVID is not behind us as we had hoped. On Tuesday calming words by the Fed, and another round of corporate profit releases turned markets positive. By week’s end...
Stock markets ended the week slightly lower - Stock markets had a relatively quiet week. Second quarter corporate profits have come in strong which was expected. Unfortunately, investors sold off stocks Friday on fears of rising COVID cases. That brought stock markets down at the close of the week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed the week at 34,687.85, down 0.5% from 34,870.16 last...
Stocks slightly higher after turbulent week – Stocks markets exhibited huge swings this week. Thursday markets plunged over one percent as investors feared that thespike in new COVID Delta variant cases would slow the progress of the world returning to normalcy after the pandemic. A decision by Japan not to allow fans at the summer Olympics was also announced Thursday. Economic data released...