D&D Note (5-4-2012) ~ Jobs Number Disappoints Sending Almost All Stocks Down

D&D Note (5-4-2012)

The monthly job number for April came in well below what any investor would like to see. In April we only netted a gain of 115,000 jobs – far less than the expected 160,000 which was the economists forecast and far less than the needed 200k+ a month to revive the economy. Even worse what would appear as the only good element of the jobs report, the fact that the unemployment rate fell to 8.1%, is actually another bad sign. The reason the rate fell was due to people dropping out of looking for a job which are called discouraged workers, meaning now they are no longer counted in the unemployment number – but still don’t have a job.

The jobs report still doesn’t give the FED any direction in whether to QE or not to QE. While the markets didn’t like the report it did not give enough guidance for the FED to act.

Now the May job report which will be released in early June will be a huge deciding factor on if we see some sort of bond purchasing program at the end of operation twist in late June.

Oil fell $4.05 to close at $98.56 a barrel of black gold. Yes, thats right under $100. Many investors are expecting to see the commodity that runs our economies to fall further next week.

Stocks basically got slaughtered today and there weren’t many places to hide other than with shorts. One place to hide today was in Gold which rose $10.40 to close at $1,645.20 – maintaining the bull case for the shiny metal.

Another asset that was up today was the equity 21Vianet Group (VNET) which was up 3.26% closing at $13.32. VNET is the Chinese equivalent of EMC (EMC) or NetApp (NTAP) which are large data centers that power the cloud.

Another was Hain Celestial Group (HAIN) which was up 6.26% closing at $50.27 a share. HAIN is a natural and organic product manufacturer and distributer, and one huge product they have this year is the Greek Yogurt craze.

The DOW (INDU) lost 168 points to close at 13,038.27. The tech heavy Nasdaq (COMP) was lower by 68 points finishing at 2,956.34. And the S&P 500 (SPX) slid 22 points to close the week at 1,369.10.

“Be greedy when others are fearful, and fearful when others are greedy” still holds true today. Many attribute that quote to the Oracle of Omaha Mr. Warren Buffet but it actually derived from his mentor Benjamin Graham.

Today while others shorted the Market and sold their stocks, D&D searched for misplaced value and purchased equities. Bull markets typically climb “a wall of worry.”