Money - AOL Money & Finance

As news broke that the U.S. jobless rate crossed the dreaded 10 percent mark, many investors braced for the market's reaction. The response to word that unemployment reached levels not seen since 1983? The Dow Jones industrial average closed up 17.46 points to 10,023.42 and the S&P 500 ended the day at 1,069.30, up 2.67 points. Not exactly a sell-off.

So did news on Friday of 10.2 percent unemployment represent a buying opportunity? For those who follow market trends, it did.

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Just how dangerous are stimulus-driven deficits in the long run?

By Charles Hugh Smith | Nov 7th 2009, 9:30AM EST Filed Under: Economy

Most mainstream academic and government economists -- elites, we should note, who are generally well-protected from the vagaries of the real world -- are united in the view that massive federal deficits to fund stimulus programs are not just a good thing but a necessary thing.

Economist J. Brad DeLong, for example, recently raked a journalist over the coals for suggesting deficits might cause long-term harm to the economy. Accusing the journalist of "not doing the arithmetic," the economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley launched into a questionable string of assumptions to reach the dubious conclusion that massive federal borrowing will add a mere $5 per year to every taxpayers' future tax burden.

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No daily Viagra dose, no peace! Philly transit workers rise up in protest

By Jonathan Berr | Nov 7th 2009, 4:00PM EST Filed Under: Healthcare, Media, Pfizer

The striking union of transit workers in Philadelphia are angry that they're not getting daily doses of Viagra. And amazingly, their bosses apparently caved on their demands after the union turned down a generous offer -- and threatened to embarrass the city during the World Series.

The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority has agreed to cover almost all of its rising health-care costs, and to increase coverage for Pfizer's (PFE) Viagra and other erectile dysfunction treatments, the Philadelphia Daily News reports. Workers are unhappy that their health insurance plan only covers about 10 pills a month.

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Berkshire Hathaway's net profit triples while stock portfolio bests S&P 500

By Tim Catts | Nov 6th 2009, 6:40PM EST Filed Under: Berkshire Hathaway

Warren Buffett, one of the world's richest men and CEO of conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A), once proclaimed that "the banking business is no favorite of ours." The comment came in one of his famous missives to Berkshire's shareholders by way of explaining that financial companies were too risky and opaque for the über-investor's tastes.

But that was in 1990. Today, well-timed investments in banks like Goldman Sachs (GS) and Wells Fargo (WFC) are looking like smart moves for Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway, according to figures contained in the company's quarterly earnings statement released Friday. So are bets on a number of other blue-chip stocks like Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) and Coca-Cola (KO). The company's third-quarter...

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Six top trades for the rest of 2009

By Sam Collins | Nov 7th 2009, 4:00PM EST Filed Under: Stocks to Buy, Best Stocks for 2009

6 Top Trades for the Rest of 2009 After seven months of one of the strongest rallies in history, the stock market is showing signs of faltering. From here on out through the rest of 2009, I believe the advance will shift gears, and instead of recording new highs every month, the trend will tend to flatten.

And as we head into the heart of the fourth quarter, I wouldn't bet on the market making many more new highs this year.

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Walmart slams lid on customers' creepy online reviews of its caskets

By Aimee Picchi | Nov 7th 2009, 2:00PM EST Filed Under: Company News, Media, Wal-Mart Stores, Amazon.com, Inc.

The howling-wolf T-shirt phenomenon it is not. Walmart Stores (WMT) has closed the lid on customer reviews of its caskets. As DailyFinance reported this week, the retailer is selling 15 caskets, and more than 130 urns and cremains containers, through its website.

As debatable as that business proposition might be, it proved a sure thing with at least one type of consumer: not the bereaved, but the wags who lurk behind high-speed Internet connections, waiting for an opportunity to heckle retailers with tongue-in-cheek reviews.

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Nomura's Joseph Mezrich sees market rally continuing as profits recover

By Anthony Massucci | Nov 6th 2009, 5:00PM EST Filed Under: Retirement, Company News, Columns, Economy, People, Investing, Earnings

Bears who warn the U.S. stock market has gone too far too fast -- the broad Standard & Poor's 500 index is up 18 percent year to date -- may not get much vindication anytime soon. Investors should see stocks continue to rally as long as corporate profits keep recovering, says market expert Joseph Mezrich (pictured), Nomura Securities International's head of quantitative research.

And the signs look good. The estimated earnings growth rate for the Standard & Poor's 500 during the fourth quarter is 216 percent, according to Thomson Reuters. Even stripping out the volatile financial sector, the other eight out of nine sectors are expected to show a blended growth rate of 7 percent. But that's still double the 3.5 percent economic growth of the U.S. economy in the third quarter. And Mezrich says it's the fact that profit growth is outpacing the U.S. economy that stocks have rallied ahead of an economic recovery.

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Verizon Droid unleashed on NYC: 'We're gonna need more phones'

By Sam Gustin | Nov 6th 2009, 4:40PM EST Filed Under: Company News, Technology, Google , Motorola, Apple, Verizon

After weeks of build-up, Verizon Communications's (VZ) Verizon Wireless unleashed its new Google (GOOG)-powered Droid smartphone on Friday, and New York City retailers were selling out of the device -- billed as the first legitimate challenger to Apple's (AAPL) iPhone's first legitimate challenger -- on the first day.

"We're gonna need more phones," Amanda Leavelle, a Verizon Wireless store manager in Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood, said around 2 p.m. "I just checked, and our inventory is running low, so I've got to call for some more."

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What to do about Fannie and Freddie: Restructure -- or terminate?

By Matthew Scott | Nov 6th 2009, 4:00PM EST Filed Under: Company News, Investing, Fannie Mae

Fannie Mae's (FNH) report of a third-quarter loss of $19.76 billion and subsequent plea to the federal government for $15 billion in additional aid is sure to intensify a big question that so far has gone unanswered: What can be done to stem the bleeding at the giant mortgage lender and its sibling Freddie Mac (FRE)? Given this week's bankruptcy filing by CIT, which will probably lead to the loss of $2.3 billion in taxpayer money, Fannie Mae's request for another $15 billion will strike many as throwing more good money after bad.

Fannie Mae had previously posted second-quarter losses of $14.8 billion, on top of $23.2 billion of red ink in the first quarter, leading Morningstar equity analyst Matthew Warren to write in a report: "Nothing fundamentally has changed with the situation at Fannie Mae, and we remain quite certain that the equity shares are worthless barring a ridiculous public policy decision on the part of the U.S. government."

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Wall Street gets it all: Bailouts, bonuses, first dibs on H1N1 vaccine

By Peter Cohan | Nov 6th 2009, 3:00PM EST Filed Under: Company News, Economy, Healthcare

$\wall-street-gets-billions-and-first-dibs-on-H1N1-vaccine$ When it comes to allocating scarce public resources, large corporations seem to have the upper hand in the US. We already know that many powerful companies, particularly the Wall Street investment banks, having gotten plenty of Washington cash. Now it looks like they're getting first dibs on the scarce H1N1 vaccine as well.

If I remember correctly, last fall the problems with the financial sector nearly cratered the global economy -- what with the $30 trillion in lost stock market value and over a trillion dollars in bank write-offs. As I've written before, Wall Street accounts for 0.057 percent of our population, but because it has given $5 billion to Washington politicians and lobbyists over the last decade, the government poured trillions of dollars into bailing it out after its little collapse last year.

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Gold futures top $1,100, oil prices sink on economic worries

By AP | Nov 6th 2009, 2:31PM EST Filed Under: Energy, Economy

New York gold futures topped $1,100 an ounce for the first time ever as investors continued to funnel funds into safe-haven gold amid the slumping world economy.

Most-active gold for December delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange's Comex division reached the $1,100 mark about one year and eight months after it topped $1,000 for the first time in March 2008.

The benchmark contract posted a new closing record of $1,089.30 the previous day, ending higher for four days in a row.

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