Jobs jobs jobs spark continued rally

American payroll numbers came in this morning and the results were as good as they could be given current economics. Predicted job losses averaged around 325,000 but initial numbers for July put losses at 247,000. Employers have certainly slowed their layoffs in June and July. Additionally the June number was revised downward from 467,000 to 443,000.

Now, that's a lot of numbers in one paragraph but the underlying message is this. Things are slowly moving forward in the job market, and stemming job losses, which in turn will turn into job creation is the only way towards full economic recovery. Now, some will say that the country is still losing jobs, and that the continuing number of losses in this recession stands at near 7Million, a record for post WWII. Both those facts are true, however an important metric, the unemployment rate, fell from 9.5% to 9.4%, despite expectations that it would rise another 10 basis points.

The jobs report, along with the first profitable quarter from AIG (AIG), up 9%, in almost 2 years sent stocks higher in morning trade, with the DOW climbing about 100 points.