where's dow headed?... an hour on the net

Here's what you get from an hour of surfing..........

"Early Thursday, stocks dipped after the Labor Department reported a spike in jobless claims to a level not seen since September 2005."

"The ISM said Thursday the services sector contracted in March 2008"

"......The median price of a new house is down 17% from its 2007 high --- and still falling".

".....facing a $14 billion deficit and even larger projected shortfalls, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., or PBGC, decided not to save (by raising premiums) or to live within its means (by cutting benefits) but to gamble in the financial markets by taking on more risk. The premiums don't cover what the fund has to pay out in most years, and the odds are that the deficit will grow. The agency estimated that for fiscal 2006, the pension plans it covered were a total of $500 billion short. If any of these underfunded plans went bust, the assets that it turned over to the PBGC wouldn't cover the guaranteed payouts of retired workers, which would run the agency's deficit higher."

".......bad news from financial goliaths UBS AG (UBS, news, msgs), Deutsche Bank (DB, news, msgs) and Lehman Bros. (LEH, news, msgs) was treated as good news......"

"….leverage is far higher and more broadly used now, and losses are much deeper -- approaching $1 trillion by some accounts"

"The number of new people signing up for unemployment benefits last week shot up to the highest level in more than two years, fresh evidence of the damage to a national economy clobbered by housing, credit and financial crises. The Labor Department reported Thursday that new applications filed for unemployment insurance jumped by a seasonally adjusted 38,000 to 407,000 for the week ending March 29. The increase left claims at their highest point since Sept. 17, 2005, following the blows of the devastating Gulf Coast hurricanes. Meanwhile, the number of people continuing to collect unemployment benefits rose by a sharp 97,000 to 2.94 million for the week ending March 22, the most recent period for which that information is available. That was the highest since July 17, 2004. "

"For the first time, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke acknowledged on Wednesday said the country could be heading toward a recession. Many other economists and the public believe it’s already there."

"More Americans have fallen behind on consumer loans than at any time in nearly 16 years, as credit problems once concentrated in mortgages spread into other forms of debt. In a quarterly study, the American Bankers Association said the percentage of loans at least 30 days past due rose to 2.65 percent in the fourth quarter from 2.44 percent in the third quarter, and from 2.23 percent a year earlier. The rate of delinquencies was the highest since a 2.75 percent rate in the first quarter of 1992. It provides a fresh sign the nation's economy is slowing, and may be in recession."

"Reports of suspected mortgage fraud rose 42 percent last year as banks became more leery of lies on loan applications. The Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network said Thursday that there were 52,868 reports for mortgage fraud in 2007, up from 37,313 a year earlier. Mortgage fraud reports were the third-most common type of suspicious activity. "

"The Institute for Supply Management said Thursday that the nation’s service sector — which includes retailers, the hotel business, insurance and various social services — contracted in March, but not as much as the month before. Still, worries deepened about soaring prices for raw materials. The institute, a trade group of purchasing executives, said its non-manufacturing index registered 49.6 last month, compared with 49.3 in February. A reading below 50 indicates contraction, while a reading above 50 indicates growth. It’s the third consecutive month of contraction, but the March reading was a bit stronger than the 49.0 expected by analysts surveyed by Thomson/IFR."