Wall Street shrugs off jobless concerns

We don't need employed people adding costs to businesses and reducing profits. We see the price of stocks increasing because people are unemployed and that allows business to run "lean and mean." Consumers? What's the big concern about consumers? Just look at those stock prices going up! Besides, the Obama administration is trimming deficit projections [okay, maybe not actual deficits].

Wall Street shrugs off jobless concerns

By Kiran Stacey in New York

Published: August 20 2009 14:06 | Last updated: August 20 2009 15:30

Strong buying after the open helped US stocks overcome mixed economic data on Thursday morning, putting them on course for their third successive positive session and taking the benchmark S&P 500 index back over 1,000 for the first time this week.

Financial stocks led the way, helped by news that the Obama administration would trim its budget deficit expectations next week after eradicating a $250bn provision for further bank bail-outs.

This helped the sector shake off an unexpected rise in the number of people claiming unemployment benefits for the first time, as well as a smaller-than-expected rise in a measure of several leading economic indicators. Investors instead took confidence from a dramatic and unpredicted swing in factory activity in the mid-Atlantic region, as the Philadelphia Federal Reserve said business activity turned positive for the first time in 10 months.

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