Phil's Financial Tip of the Day:
Show thanks to your customers this Thanksgiving season.
Happy Thanksgiving to all!
In the spirit of the Thanksgiving holiday-have you thanked your customers lately? Do they know how much they mean to you?
As Harvey Mackay pointed out in his excellent weekly column yesterday, "Customer appreciation is not a wise area in which to economize. Your sales force and customer service staff need support that starts at the top. The boss should set the tone for customer appreciation because without customers, the boss doesn't have any reason to come to work."
As Mr. Mackay also pointed out so astutely about getting thank you cards from customers this time of year: "What I love about this custom is that our greeting never gets lost in the shuffle. We get relatively few cards in November. They are memorable."
So thank your customers this time of year-they will remember it all year!
To read the entire column from Harvey Mackay:
http://harveymackay.com/column/
In the Markets today:
Stocks tumbled as surprisingly poor demand at a German government-bond auction raised concerns about peripheral European issues spreading to the stronger core countries.
Stocks Suffer Third Straight Fall-From The Wall Street Journal
Stocks ended lower again, as surprisingly poor demand at a German government-bond auction raised concerns about peripheral European issues spreading to the stronger core countries.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 236.09 points, or 2.1%, to 11257.63. The Dow saw its third straight decline, following a two-day fall of 2.6% that left the average at a five-week low. With Wednesday's fall, the Dow has given up half its October rally, its biggest month of gains since 2002.
The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index declined 26.24 points, or 2.2%, to 1161.80, in preliminary data, and the Nasdaq Composite shed 61.20 points, or 2.4%, to 2460.08.
Earlier in the afternoon, all but one of the 30 Dow components and all 10 of the S&P 500 sectors were trading in negative territory. Leading the losses were materials, financial and energy stocks. Bank of America, Alcoa and Hewlett-Packard each lost 3.5% or more.
The declines were driven by worrying developments in Europe, where demand at Germany's auction of new 10-year government bonds was surprisingly weak, bringing the euro zone's debt fears closer to the core of the region. The disappointing demand lifted yields on Spanish and French government bonds as well.
The European Central Bank again bought Italian and Spanish bonds as confidence wavered. Also hurting bond-market sentiment were reports Belgium can't pay its agreed share of the planned rescue of the Belgian-French bank Dexia, which is seen as placing more risk at the door of the French treasury and adding another threat to the country's triple-A credit rating. Belgian and French officials denied they are renegotiating the dismantling of Dexia.
"This is a little wakeup call to say no one's immune from this crisis," said Jerry Webman, chief economist at OppenheimerFunds. "That's the issue with contagion—financial system troubles are self-fulfilling prophecies....Troubles in the financial system create further troubles that spread into the economy, so the market is right to be cautious."
At the same time, Mr. Webman said markets may be playing it safe ahead of a quiet four days coming up in the U.S. "A yield of 2.15% on bunds is not exactly Greek territory, so obviously Germany continues to have a lot of financial flexibility," he said.
Those worries sent the euro tumbling against the dollar, falling to $1.3329, near a two-month low, from $1.3505 late Tuesday in New York. The Stoxx Europe 600 finished down 1.3%, with losses limited in part by a better-than-expected reading of the euro-zone composite purchasing-managers index for November.
Asian exchanges were broadly lower, with China's Shanghai Composite erasing early gains to close down 0.7% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index dropping 2.8%. The preliminary HSBC China Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index, a gauge of nationwide manufacturing activity, fell to 48.0 in November, from a final reading of 51.0 in October. Readings below 50 imply contraction.
In U.S. economic news, initial jobless claims ticked slightly higher last week after three consecutive declines, rising slightly to 393,000, in line with expectations. Orders for durable goods decreased 0.7% in October, while the September reading was revised sharply lower to a 1.5% drop, from an earlier estimate of a 0.6% decline.
Consumer spending, meanwhile, slowed in October, growing by just 0.1% after a 0.7% rise the month before, missing expectations. U.S. incomes rose 0.4% in October, following a 0.1% rise in the prior month.
Gold futures slipped 0.4% to settle at $1,695.70 an ounce, while crude-oil futures fell to about $96.25 a barrel. Demand for Treasurys sent the yield on the 10-year note to 1.8881%.
In corporate news, shares of Deere climbed 3.2% after the farm- and construction-equipment maker reported fiscal fourth-quarter earnings and revenue that exceeded expectations.
TiVo slipped into negative territory, shedding 1.2% after reporting fiscal third-quarter losses that were narrower than expected and revenue that exceeded estimates. In addition, the company posted an increase in subscribers to break a four-year streak of decreases.
Pandora Media slumped 7.6% after the online-radio company reported a fiscal third-quarter profit versus expectations of a loss but indicated its current-quarter loss could be wider than anticipated.
Boston Scientific climbed 0.8% after regulators approved its next-generation drug-eluting heart stent
Top financial story of the day:
Slightly more in US sought unemployment benefits last week after 2 months of steady declines
Slightly more in US seek unemployment benefits-From AP
The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits ticked up slightly last week after two months of steady declines.
But the increase isn't enough to reverse the downward trend. The four-week average of applications, a less volatile measure, fell to its lowest level since April. The decline in the average signals that companies are laying off fewer workers.
Weekly applications for unemployment aid rose 2,000 to a seasonally adjusted 393,000, the Department of Labor said Wednesday.
It's the second increase in six weeks. The four-week average fell to 394,250. That's the eighth drop in the past nine weeks.
Even so, weekly applications would need to stay below 375,000 consistently to push down the unemployment rate significantly. They haven't been at that level since February.
The pace of hiring over the past few months has been mixed. The economy added only 80,000 jobs in October, the fewest in four months. But the government also said this month that employers added more jobs in August and September than it had initially reported. And the unemployment rate dipped to 9 percent.
The economy is growing but not quickly enough to generate many jobs. The economy expanded at a 2 percent annual rate in the July-September quarter, the government said Tuesday. That was down from an earlier estimate of 2.5 percent.
Growth would need to be more than twice that pace to significantly reduce unemployment, economists say.
The lower estimate was mostly because companies sharply reduced their stockpiles of goods. They probably didn't anticipate that consumer and business spending would remain strong through the summer.
A decline in inventories is not always a bad sign. Economists believe this could lead to better growth in the current quarter, if businesses anticipate more demand and restock their shelves.
Economists predict growth will strengthen to around 3 percent in the October-December quarter.
Many raised their estimates after seeing encouraging October reports on retail sales and factory output.
Still, that brighter outlook hinges on whether Europe can prevent its financial crisis from getting worse. If not, Europe could fall into a recession, which could slow U.S. growth next year.
In the first six months of the year, the economy grew at an annual rate of just 0.9 percent. It was the weakest growth since the recession officially ended, which stocked fears over the summer that the economy could be on the verge of another downturn.
The stronger growth in the July-September quarter helped calm those worries. Still, Americans spent more while earning less, and they dipped into their savings to make up the difference. At the same time, businesses invested more in machines and computers, not workers.
Without more jobs and higher pay raises, consumers are unlikely to be able to sustain those gains.
Quote of the Day from Dave Ramsey.com:
A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue, but the parent of all the other virtues. — Cicero
No comments:
Post a Comment