Shares plunged on Wall Street and the dollar fell sharply tonight after an increase in jobless claims and weak signals from industry prompted fears that the US is heading for a double-dip recession.
The Dow Jones index fell 200 points at one stage in morning trading in New York after the US labour department reported that 500,000 new claims for unemployment benefit were filed in the week ending 14 August – an increase of 12,000 on the previous week and the highest figure for nine months.
The already gloomy mood was compounded when the Philadelphia Fed, one of the Federal Reserve's 12 regional reserve banks, published its monthly health check on manufacturing in America's mid-Atlantic region. The survey, seen by Wall Street as a barometer of US industrial conditions, showed activity had contracted unexpectedly for the first time since July 2009.
President Barack Obama called on Congress to pass a bill providing support for small businesses, but Wall Street believes the threat to the world's biggest economy will also require action by the Federal Reserve to expand the money supply through its quantitative easing programme. James Bullard, president of the St Louis Fed, said tonight that the central bank would need to step up its purchases of bonds should the threat of deflation intensify.
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On June 29, 2010, Ankara, in a first sign of frustration, called on Iran to return "as soon as possible" to the negotiating table over a nuclear fuel swap deal. According to a senior Turkish diplomat, Turkey voted against tougher UN sanctions under the condition that Iran would engage itself in talks on its controversial nuclear program. However, on June 28, 2010 Ahmadinejad announced that any negotiations will be postponed until late August in order to "punish" Western powers. Tehran left it unclear when and if it will continue to talk with Brazil and Turkey, its two allies.
"If we can get some confirmation from the earnings and then the stocks rally on that, it will be a very good sign that we'll have a decent summer," said Blair Falconer, portfolio manager at HSBC Securities.
North American markets finished higher last week, with the TSX up 3.34 per cent and the Dow industrials ahead 5.28 per cent as bargain hunters moved in following big slides of over four per cent the previous week.
NEW YORK — Analysts are raising earnings estimates for U. S. companies at the fastest rate since at least 2004 during a quarter when stocks have posted some of their biggest losses in 16 months on concern that the economy will sink back into a recession.
Profit for companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index now are expected to jump 34 percent this year, according to more than 8,000 estimates compiled by Bloomberg. On March 29, the projected increase had been 27 percent. The revision is the greatest during any quarter in at least six years.
But lower-than-forecast home sales, manufacturing and private-sector job growth have sent the benchmark gauge for U. S. equities down 11 percent since hitting 1,217 April 23, despite last week’s rally.
A Qassam rocket landed near a building in one of the communities in the Sdot Negev Regional Council early Wednesday, causing damage to a packing-house. There were no reports of injuries.
Avi Aptelboim, head of the community's emergency squad, reported that "a Color Red siren was sounded at around 4 am, followed by a rocket which landed inside the community, near the packing-house. The packing-house sustained heavy damage and it won't be operated today. There were no injuries, thank God." "The rocket landed right next to the packing-house.
The equipment near the packing-house was damaged, and the building itself sustained damage from shrapnel," said one of the residents.
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Turkey’s provocative flotilla—often described in Orwellian terms as a humanitarian mission—has set in motion a flurry of diplomatic activity, but if the Iranians send escort vessels for the next round of Turkish ships, it could present a casus belli.
It is also instructive that Syria is playing a dangerous game with both missile deployment and rearming Hezbollah. According to most public accounts, Hezbollah is sitting on 40,000 long-, medium- and short-range missiles and Syrian territory has served as a conduit for military material from Iran since the end of the 2006 Lebanon War.
Should Syria move its own scuds to (Click here to read the full article)
Israel could see what was coming. Before the convoy set sail, Israeli leaders pleaded with Turkish officials to stop it; they offered to allow the supplies to be delivered through an Israeli checkpoint. But Erdoğan’s government let it go anyway. Thus, Israel had no choice but to intervene directly. And those on the boat made sure it turned violent.
Now, Turkey is milking the event for all it’s worth. It accused Israel of state-sponsored terrorism. It compared the psychological impact of the incident on Turks to the 9/11 terrorist attacks on Americans. Turkish President Abdullah Gül called the Israeli raid a crime against humanity and said Israeli-Turkish relations will never be the same. Erdoğan labeled it a massacre. Turkish armed forces announced several cutbacks in cooperation with Israeli forces. The government also offered to supply Turkish naval protection for the next “aid” convoy to Gaza; “This would be, in effect, an act of war,” wrote Mark Steyn, “—more to the point, an act of war by a nato member against the State of Israel.”
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