http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3683270/
Stocks dive after election; Dow down 480-plus
Investors mull what impact president will have on business and economy
The reality:
Analysts said investors were also uneasy in advance of the Labor Department’s October employment report, to be issued Friday. Economists, on average, expect a 200,000 drop in payrolls, according to Thomson/IFR.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27554875/
U.S. service sector shrinks sharply in October
Drop is worse than economists had expected
msnbc.com news services
updated 11:19 a.m. ET, Wed., Nov. 5, 2008
NEW YORK - Hotels, construction firms and retailers saw business shrink in October as slower spending and declining employment hurt the service sector, in another gloomy sign for the economy.
The Institute for Supply Management, a trade group of purchasing executives, said Wednesday its service sector index suffered a sharper-than-expected drop to 44.4 in October from 50.2 in September.
Wall Street economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters expected a reading of 47.5. A reading below 50 signals contraction.
...
A manufacturing report issued Monday by ISM showed the worst reading since September 1982, when the country was near the end of a 16-month recession.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27553383/
Reuters updated 8:22 a.m. ET, Wed., Nov. 5, 2008
NEW YORK - Planned layoffs at U.S. firms surged to their highest in nearly five years during October, with cuts in the financial and auto sectors leading the charge as the economic outlook worsened, a report by outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas said on Wednesday.
Job cuts announced in October totaled 112,884, up 19 percent from September, the report said, citing evidence of widespread economic malaise as troubles that began in housing and banking infect the rest of the economy.
“The fact that nearly three out of four industry categories are cutting more jobs is proof of how widely the impact of this downturn has spread,” said John Challenger, chief executive officer of Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
“A year ago, job cuts were concentrated in the financial sector and home-building industries. Job cuts are now rising across the board.”
October represented the year’s worst month for job cuts for several industries, said Challenger, including industrial goods manufacturing, consumer products, pharmaceutical, food and electronics.
The report comes as the government is expected to report 200,000 jobs were lost in October, bringing the total this year to nearly 1 million.
The unemployment rate is also seen rising to 6.3 percent from 6.1 percent. Economists forecast that the jobless rate will rise to more than 8 percent before the job market recovers.
The U.S. economy shrank 0.3 percent in the third quarter after a robust, stimulus-driven second quarter. The housing market continued to exert a tremendous drag, with the decline in residential investment actually accelerating between July and September.
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