Stocks tanking early, and the reason? Data!
Or maybe it's his evil brother Lore.
U.S. initial jobless claims rose by 26,000 to 397,000 in the week ended March 5, the Labor Department said Thursday in its weekly report. The prior week’s figures, when claims fell to the lowest level in almost three years, were revised up slightly, to 371,000 from an original estimate of 368,000.
Investors spent much of the morning eyeing overseas developments. Besides continued unrest in Libya and the Middle East, a rating agency’s Spain downgrade and a slowdown in Chinese exports sent global markets lower.
“The market is in a tug of war right now between the recovery and evidence that the economy is slowing, and frankly, [is] dependent on quantitative easing,” said Terry Morris, Senior Vice President at National Penn Investors Trust Company.
To top that off, even the oil companies are down because oil prices are falling! Is there no good news out there?
Well, once again we have market volatility playing with our senses. Up a hundred plus, down a hundred plus. Lather. Rinse. Repeat
I think this does add to the notion that we are seeing a topping process in the market.
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UPDATED: For some reason, I deleted this entry on my iPhone and it impacted the post on the blog. So this is a repost.