NEW YORK (CNN/Money) -
The headline news today was all about jobs -- while the jobless rate fell (to 6.2 percent), so did payroll employment outside of the farming sector, and the Labor Department said that job losses in May and June were much bigger than they previously thought. The Dow shed 79.83 to 9,153.97 while the Nasdaq fell 19.40 to 1,715.62.
The bigger problem might be the unprecedented (correct me if I'm wrong) volatility in the bond market, which continued to gyrate today as firms rebalanced their mortgage portfolios. Talk about destabilizing. So even with the dog days of August, can we do a sixth straight up month?
STOCK STUFF Pity J.P. Morgan -- just when it thought the brunt of the news of its Enron settlement had passed, rumors swept the market that the firm had a bond problem. (See above.) The stock fell $1.66 to $33.39.
Walt Disney saw its stock actually climb -- up 64 cents to $22.56 -- on news that earnings rose 10 percent thanks to movies (hello, Nemo!) and TV and despite theme park issues. At the same time, Euro Disney (Disney owns 39 percent) plunged after warning that it would not be able to meet its debt repayments as scheduled. Can it be so good and so bad at the same time? (And yes, today is all about bonds.)
Mortal enemies Coke and Pepsi both fell, 26 cents to $44.71 and 73 cents to $45.34 respectively, in part due to a Goldman Sachs downgrade; Johnson & Johnson shed $1.44 to $50.35 on a Merrill Lynch downgrade. ("JNJ's reign as 'King of the Hill' in stents may be short-lived since the animosity created by the 'botched' launch of the Cypher stent has interventional cardiologists salivating in anticipation of a next entrant," wrote Merrill.)
John Hancock fell $2.03 to $30.62 despite beating earnings estimates. A lot of it was one-time gains, and the company also lowered sales estimates for the year.
MORE ON BONDS Sorry -- I'm obsessed, at least for today. Merrill's Richard Bernstein is one strategist who's worried about rising rates -- or falling rates, for that matter. He writes that "credit-sensitive industries are now caught between a rock and a hard place. If rates go up (as they are doing) then affordability might decrease because of rising mortgages rates. If rates go down (as we suspect they will), then affordability might decrease because of weaker incomes."
Bernstein's fear is that falling rates might mean that the economy is significantly weaker than most are willing to admit. Plus, he and other Merrill strategists point out that this time around, there's no pent-up consumer demand -- that's the downside of our continued strong spending. (For what it's worth, Bernstein is also "strongly underweight" technology because of valuation concerns.)
Loose Change
Can it be a bull market if mutual funds are continuing to die? Today, Morgan Stanley announced it would close three more funds. Not sure if the birth/death rate of funds would be a leading or a trailing indicator, though...
Speaking of parties that might be over, check out Cardinal Health, which plunged yesterday after warning about earnings. Was this the crack that many have been waiting for? Or not? Today, the stock rebounded $1.43 to $56.18...
Has Aetna come back to life? The one-time posterchild for HMO horror has seen its stock climb almost 50 percent this year. (It slipped a bit today.) Still, GimmeCredit's Kathy Shanley wants to see more evidence of positive cash flow and successful enrollment growth....
Does this tell us anything? July sales fell at Ford and GM, but Porsche's sales were up 7.3 percent...
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