Way back in 1983, I bought an Apple IIE computer. I thought at the time, things couldn’t get any better for a college student majoring in English. I mean every assignment was a writing assignment, or so it seemed. Understand that buying the Apple computer moved me from an IBM selectric typewriter with whiteout to, well, something unbelievable more useful. Although, in later years, I switched to Windows, I nevertheless cut my computer teeth on a product that Steve Jobs created. I am not alone. The world is a different place because of his contributions to the computer age, most notably, a computer that could actually be portable. He was a mind for the ages, a visionary who persisted until everyone else could see what he saw. It just might be true that the good die young …
The European Central Bank kept interest rates on hold on Thursday as broadly expected and is expected to launch a set of fresh liquidity measures to help banks to weather the euro zone’s worsening debt storm.
It looks as if Europe is getting closer to some resolution on the debt issue plaguing the continent. Hopefully, the ECB learned from the Lehman debacle that big financial problems don’t go away with default. In fact, the problems just get worse.
The Bank of England will spend 75 billion pounds ($114.8 billion) more of newly-created money to shield Britain’s economy from the euro zone debt crisis and keep a faltering recovery going, opting for an early, dramatic move to maximize the impact.
In any case, it appears that individual European countries are preparing for what many now say is the inevitable. We will see …
Aside from the dubious European issue, the market seems to feel a bit better the last few days. Perhaps it has thrown off the cloak of doom and gloom and it is looking more at the fundamentals than the fear. If only this could be so. I am just not sure this is the case, so I expect more volatility is on the way.
So, tomorrow is the big day. The employment report for September comes out, and that will tell the tale of improvement or not. Many are forecasting a big jump, anywhere from 50-100,000 jobs, but the early predictors have been wrong quite a bit recently. The market, however, seems to be going with the early forecasts. Again, we will see …
Let me just end this with one more salute to Steve Jobs. Thanks buddy. My writing life is much, much better because of you …
Trade in the day – Invest in your life …
