Bertie
01-06-2007, 09:41 AM
Wall Street and the Treasury market ended the first week of 2007 with sharp losses yesterday after a surprising surge in new jobs and wages diminished the hopes of investors for an interest rate cut.
The markets shuddered at the Labor Department’s report that employers increased their payrolls by 167,000 in December and increased the hourly wages of workers by 0.5 percent. The unemployment rate, meanwhile, held steady at 4.5 percent.
The report suggested that the economy will not be slowing as much as investors anticipated — news that should prove positive for stocks in the long term, but which raised concerns yesterday that the Federal Reserve might use it as a reason to raise interest rates.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/06/business/06markets.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
The markets shuddered at the Labor Department’s report that employers increased their payrolls by 167,000 in December and increased the hourly wages of workers by 0.5 percent. The unemployment rate, meanwhile, held steady at 4.5 percent.
The report suggested that the economy will not be slowing as much as investors anticipated — news that should prove positive for stocks in the long term, but which raised concerns yesterday that the Federal Reserve might use it as a reason to raise interest rates.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/06/business/06markets.html?_r=1&oref=slogin