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 Midday.
If one had to coin a phrase for the week, it would be, "it's going to take longer than we thought." Sour as it sounded, the reality forced the stock market to back off from last week's rally. Most was given back on Monday. And although more volatile swings to correspond with investors' emotions were expected, both the Dow and NASDAQ have settled back into a trading range. What's peculiar - these indices are still higher than February's range. And I actually heard a few analysts whisper, "We've seen the bottom." Volume this week was light and will probably remain so. For this bashful onlooker, war's a risky time to invest.
And this just in - Texas unemployment figures for February. Statewide unemployment rose two-tenths of a percent from January to 6.4%. Let me remind you, national unemployment is at 5.8%, after rising only one-tenth of a percent. This was a disappointing setback from January, when employment in Texas increased by almost 11-thousand jobs. February saw a decrease of 16-hundred jobs. And after adding on jobs in January, manufacturing took the biggest dip last month. Government added the most jobs.
But here's some good news - unemployment fell in the Dallas and Fort Worth/Arlington areas. The two metropolitan areas went down by one-tenth of a percent, but still well above the national average. I say, keep chiseling away.
And on a lighter note, if you're looking to kick the expensive-but-really-good coffee habit, there's only a few states left in the union that are Starbucks-less: Montana, the Dakotas, West Virginia and Alaska. South Dakota unemployment: 3.1%. For KERA Marketplace Midday, 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.
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