Thursday’s Employment Report was a downer for US equities. Too many people had been hooked into the belief that the unemployment situation in the US, and Europe as well, was on the mend. The data shows otherwise.

With final hour selling going into the long holiday weekend, Thursday’s session was particularly nasty. The S&P 500 (896.42 -26.91 -2.91%), the DJIA (8,280.74 -223.32 -2.63%), and the NASDAQ (1,796.52 -49.20 -2.67%) were all down substantially.

By Robin Wauters

Different markets have different needs for marketing products or services. We all know that much. But that doesn’t take away the weirdness of a company like Google (GOOG) advertising its core product (online search) by using ink that was printed on paper.

By now you know the non-farm payrolls report came out and the job loss for June was worse than expected. Fortunately the weekly jobless claims number stunk too (small humor attempt). And of course the stock market puked down yesterday.

The tenor of the comments on CNBC seemed to be that "oh well, forget about it now," this after the occasional berating of people who were not so bullish before the June data printed. This sort of manic tone that investors are exposed to from various parts of the media has the potential to be dangerous.

Sears (SHLD) is doing some very interesting things online that while in their infancy, have the potential to turn them into a "social shopping hub".

From Bnet:

Typically when I write about individual stocks I share bullish ideas that I am either long or thinking about going long. I was recently doing some work on AutoNation (AN), however, and since the stock looks pricey to me I figured I would share a bearish case as well.

The reason for a contrarian like me to look under the hood of AutoNation is pretty straightforward. The U.S. automobile industry is obviously struggling right now but AN has strong management and the dealers are in better shape than the car makers themselves (as cost structures are more in-line without union obligations, etc). Couple that with strong buy side interest from Eddie Lampert’s ESL Investments and Bill Gates affiliated Cascade Investments and my interest was peaked.

“You know the beautiful thing: June 29, 2009, is the two-year anniversary of the first shipment of the iPhone. Not one of those people will still be using an iPhone a month later.”

– Palm investor Roger McNamee

It’s nice to know that Americans aren’t the only people in the world that believe real estate prices can never stop going up. Apparently the Chinese share our affinity for bubbles.

From MarketWatch, real estate prices in China are going through the roof:

Yesterday, Akamai (AKAM) "officially" announced support for variable bit rate streaming of live and on-demand video content for the iPhone and iPod touch and has launched a new showcase site at iphone.akamai.com. The site which has been live for about a month, showcases content from about a dozen content providers including FOX News, MTV and USA Today amongst others.

Akamai's new iPhone streaming service is based on the standard HTTP delivery protocol which for Akamai, means they can utilize more of their HTTP network infrastructure as opposed to proprietary based streaming protocols. Earlier in the week I came across the showcase site and tested the quality and while it looks pretty good, there were times when the video appeared choppy. Hard to know what exactly caused that as the videos as they play now, don't give you any performance or quality indicators in the player to know if your connection is having problems. That's one feature I'd like to see in the player and one that most PC based video players already have built in.

It seems as though the darkest clouds are finally dissipating over alt energy's financing horizon. Over the past few weeks, money has started flowing into the sector again, as evidenced by a number of recent deal announcements:

1. On June 9, I reported on the upcoming IPO for Magma Energy Corp., a geothermal exploration company. The IPO's size will be upped from an initial C$50 MM to C$100 MM, a sign of increased market appetite
2. SunPower Corp.(SPWRA) raised $418 MM in early May through a share and debt offering, and recently announced it had reached a $100 MM deal with Wells Fargo (WFC) to fund commercial-scale solar PV projects across the US
3. John reported a few days ago that A123 Systems had amended the SEC registration statement for its proposed IPO, positing that it could be much larger than initially anticipated
4. In late May, Suntech Power (STP) raised $277 MM from a follow-on offering of its American Depositary Shares (ADSs), and recently received a $50 MM convertible loan from the IFC
5. On June 23, Yingli Green (YGE) raised $193 MM through a follow-on offering of its ADSs
6. On June 25, Trina Solar (TSL) secured credit facilities of about $57 MM
7. New Energy Finance just reported a slight increase in asset financing for Q2 2009, although it cautioned that money flows into renewable energy projects were: (1) down substantially from what they were a year ago (~66% in the US); and (2) far below the level where they need to be if greenhouse gas emissions are to be brought under control by 2020

As noted by both New Energy Finance and John, requirements for matching funds under the ARRA mean that firms that want to access government grants will have to put up some of their money, potentially leading some of them to go to market even if conditions aren't ideal.

This article continues my Clean Energy Stocks Shopping List series. So far I've brought you:

• Five clean transport stocks,
• I looked at why it makes sense to wait for better prices,
• Five Energy Efficiency stocks (always my favorite sector), and
• Five Electric Transmission Stocks.

This article takes a look at two of the most economical clean electricity generation technologies, landfill gas and geothermal.

At the midpoint of 2009, consumer confidence is on pace for its worst year in 23 years of polls and suffering its lowest second-quarter average along the way.

This week, the ABC News Consumer Comfort Index stands at -51 on its scale of +100 to -100, just 3 points from its lowest on Jan. 25 and its second straight week below the dreaded -50 level.

On Wednesday I spoke with antitrust attorney Gary Reback, the man who spearheaded the push to break up Microsoft (MSFT) in the nineties. The event was hosted by HBSTech at the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley.

Employment is still falling pretty sharply.

While GDP has hardly surprised me, I did not anticipate last fall that employment would get so low. Even with the benefit of hindsight, I am not sure I see a complete explanation.

By Leena Rao

Google (GOOG) received some unfortunate news Thursday, with the U.S. Department of Justice formally announcing the investigation of the $125 million settlement Google made with the Author’s Guild to pay authors a nominal fee for copyrighted works it has scanned and made available on the Web. The settlement has drawn its fair share of critics, including Jeff Bezos. But Google keeps on plugging away, making its book search better and better.

Investors who buy stocks without reading the company's disclosures leave themselves open to risks of which they are not even aware. Consider Escalade (ESCA), a diversified producer of sporting goods and office equipment.

Here’s video from the Aspen Ideas Festival with Google CEO Eric Schmidt responding to my question about what follows the industrial age.

The global financial crisis started in the United States, and the US economy has consequently suffered more than most. Although total output has fallen less than the global average, the rise in America's unemployment rate has been the steepest in the OECD. It has the world's largest budget deficit as a percentage of GDP, save the UK. And although US shares didn't fall as far in 2008, they have hardly risen in 2009 - left in the dust by recovering emerging markets.

Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) has made a significant improvement to its business. Under a deal announced Thursday, J&J will take a major stake in biotech company Elan (ELN), thereby gaining access to Elan's Alzheimer's disease treatments, in particular leading drug bapineuzumab.

In the transaction, J&J will take a 50.1% ownership in Elan's Alzheimer's program, plus an 18.4% ownership in the remaining part of Elan. In return, Elan gets a $1 billion equity investment and a $500 million commitment to fund further development and marketing of promising Alzheimer's treatments. The major focus will be on further development of and launch activities for bapineuzumab, which is in Phase 3 clinical trials.

Johnson & Johnson has today taken what looks like a $1.5bn gamble on experimental drug bapineuzumab and the rest of Elan’s Alzheimer’s pipeline. In a surprising announcement, the US group revealed that it would be investing $1bn in exchange for an 18.4% stake in the Irish group and the full rights to its Alzheimer's Immunotherapy Program ((AIP)).

J&J will also be dipping its hand into its pocket again to contribute up to $500m to shoulder the development costs and launch of bapineuzumab. In return, Elan is set to receive a 49.9% stake in a J&J company that will be formed to acquire the AIP, and will be eligible for a 49.9% slice of any profits and tiered royalties generated by marketed products from the collaboration.

As often stated in my weekly “Words from the Wise” reviews, a confidence indicator worth monitoring is the Barron’s Confidence Index. This Index is calculated by dividing the average yield on high-grade bonds by the average yield on intermediate-grade bonds. The discrepancy between the yields is indicative of investor confidence. There has been a solid improvement in the ratio since its all-time low in December, showing that bond investors are growing more confident and have started opting for more speculative bonds over high-grade bonds.

Click to enlarge:

Long-time readers will know I made a lot of outperformance in the coal space in late 2007 through mid 2008. While everyone was in oil, I was pounding the table in the stealth rally in coal. [Dec 6, 2007: Coal Stocks Quietly in a Bull Market]

One name that was a very strange combination was Walter Industries (WLT), which at the time was a combo 'housing/coal' stock (yes, I'm serious). [May 1, 2008: Walter Industries - the Most Fascinating Company] Now they've refocused the business just as a coal pure play - specifically metallurgical coal (for steel).

Like many groups, insurance was highly shorted in late winter, and once momentum jumped in the group, investors betting against the group were crushed. Further helping insurance firms specifically was the government riding to the rescue TARP], ala commercial REITs, banks, et al. [Mar 12, 2009: The Next Big Bailout Choice - Insurance]

As I scan through stocks which are looking weak for potential short set ups, I am seeing a lot of weakness in this group all of the sudden. Even the best-run like Metlife (MET) or Travelers (TRV) are acting poorly. I'm not sure what this is signaling, but I am pointing it out. I know Doug Kass, for one, really likes this group on the long side, but I think his rationale is longer term.

The U.S. non-farm payrolls report and the ECB interest rate decision did not disappoint us by generating a tremendous amount of volatility in the currency market. The U.S. dollar rallied against every major currency except for the Japanese Yen which indicates that risk aversion drove the dollar higher. Equities fell more than 2 percent after job losses exceeded the market’s forecast by more than 100k. A total of 467k Americans lost their jobs in June, driving the unemployment rate up 9.5 percent to the highest level since 1983. The Australian dollar was hit the hardest as the drop in gold prices exacerbated the selling. U.S. equity, futures and commodity markets are closed for trading on Friday in observation of the July 4th holiday. Forex markets will be open as usual but the absence of NY traders will certainly be felt.

How Does the Dollar Trade on July 4th Holiday?

The U.S. Labor Department yesterday reported the labor market had performed considerably worse in June than had been expected. Non-farm payrolls (jobs) fell by 467,000, following a loss of 322,000 in May, whereas the unemployment rate edged higher to 9.5% from 9.4% in May.

The disappointing jobs report highlighted the severity of the downturn and suggested a bottom for employment is not near. As hopes of an economic recovery during the second half of the year dimmed, the stock market indices declined sharply for a third consecutive weekly loss.