Increased unemployment sends Wall Street plunging

Philadelphia News.Net
Thursday 2nd July, 2009

A marked increase in unemployment dented the confidence of investors Thursday.

U.S. employers stripped almost half a million jobs in June which saw the unemployment rate climb to 9.5%.

Banking shares, financials, and energy stocks tumbled as analysts re-weighed prospects for recovery of the recessed economy.

"Quite frankly, rising unemployment is bad for the entire economy," Sasha Kostadinov, portfolio manager at Shaker Investments in Cleveland, Ohio told Reuters newsagency. "It's not positive for discretionary stocks. It's not positive for financials, because there's a direct correlation between the high unemployment rate and charge-offs and delinquent payments."

At the close of trading the Dow Jones Industrials were down 223.32 points or 2.63% at 8,280.74.

The Nasdaq Composite was off 49.20 points or 2.91% at 1,796,52.

The Standard and Poor's 500 was down 236.91 points or 2.62% at 896.42.

The U.S. dollar and the Japanese yen clawed back part of their recent losses on the unemploymnet news. Around the New York close the yen had climbed to 95.86.

The commodity currencies were hit hard with the Australian dollar falling to .7944. The Canadian dollar slid to 1.1617.

The euro was last quoted at 1.4002, the British pound at 1.6400, and the Swiss franc at 1.0836.

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