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Wise Money Blog- daily news on financial matters

"Follow the money" was Deep Throat's (aka W Mark Felt) suggestion for solving the cover up of the Watergate burglary. Wise Money's blog follows this adage by keeping you informed of events in the financial world. Over 800 daily postings since 2004.

Thursday, October 02, 2008

Jitters continue as House vote looms

As expected, approval was obtained from the US Senate last night for Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to push ahead with his Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) .

The bill received a 74-25 vote with 40 Democrats, 33 Republicans and independent Joe Lieberman voting in favour of the plan. Backed by the Bush administration, the package now goes to the House of Representatives, which rejected Paulson's initial version of the proposal.

Once the bill had been passed, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd joined the Treasury Secretary in commenting on his hopes that the vote would send a strong signal to global markets.

While the US equity indices were unable to finish in positive territory they did rebound off the lows of the sessions. The Dow ended just 20 points lower and the S&P500 posted a marginal decline of 5 points. It seems that markets are likely to remains nervous until the new House vote which is expected on Friday.

At 12:45 today we have the ECB rate announcement. As the euro-region slides towards its first recession, Trichet is finding it difficult to protect the economy from the global credit crunch but at the same time having to fight inflation.

It is predicted by all 58 economist surveyed by Bloomberg that the benchmark rate will remain unchanged today at 4.25 percent, with a cut predicted by December.

Yesterday in Europe the manufacturing PMI dropped to 45 in Sep down from 47.6 in Aug. Unemployment also rose to 7.5% in Aug being the highest level since Apr 2007. This is further support that the euro-zone is heading for a recession after the economy contracted in the second quarter of 2008.

In the UK the manufacturing PMI contracted at the fastest pace in 16 years to 41 in Sep compared to 45 in Aug, while the service industry stagnated in the 3 months up to July for the first time since 2002.

It was then the turn of the US to provide an update on the state of their manufacturing sector. The ISM factory index for Sep dropped to 43.5, the lowest level since Oct 2001. There was also the release of the ADP employment change, which showed that US workers continue to lose their jobs with an estimated 8k job cuts made in Sept.

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