By Maxine Shapiro, KERA 90.1 business commentator
Dallas, TX – It's Friday so, "It's Only Money," a review of the big and not-so-big stories of the week. I'm Maxine Shapiro with KERA Marketplace Middays.
It's not like we couldn't use a nice surprise and we got it yesterday. Weekly unemployment claims were down and the index of leading indicators, which prefigures overall growth, was flat for October. Wall Street was expecting the index to be down for a fifth straight month. Flat is much better. And Hewlett-Packard really got the bulls fired by reporting better than expected earnings for its last quarter. So technically speaking, when you look at the charts, the NASDAQ closed higher than the Mid-August rally, which makes those that look at the charts very happy. The Dow would have to break through that 9,000 mark to take out those same August highs. That's about 1200 points away.
But what makes me a little more comfortable about this rally versus all of the 90's - analysts are actually downgrading some stocks based on being over-valued; the fundamentals don't merit the current stock price level. If you're an investor, I don't need to remind you that even just a couple of years ago analysts were touting stocks publicly while privately dissing them. Exposure of this practice and many lawsuits later the analyst is trying to renew some integrity to his or her position.
But they're not getting off that easy. Within the next three business days a total of $1.5 billion worth of fines will be handed out to Wall Street Firms. The firms are said to be more than happy to pay and put the closing pages on a part of history all would like to forget.
Oh, it's been a day since I talked about ex-SEC chairman Harvey Pitt. And now Fort Worth-based Radio Shack is suing poor Harvey and his ex-law firm for conflict of interest. I'll go into more detail later, but trust me, it sound like Radio Shack's got a case.
And how 'bout those Mavericks? The most exciting team in the NBA! Keep it up and I guarantee you more businesses will be moving to North Texas. For KERA Marketplace Middays, I'm Maxine Shapiro.
Marketplace Midday Reports air on KERA 90.1 Monday - Friday at 1:04 p.m. To contact Maxine Shapiro, please send emails to mshapiro@kera.org.