Russell futures climb on jobs report
The Russell 2000 (NYSE: IWM) futures are gaining ground again this morning as investors are cheering the Labor Department’s sanguine jobs report for the month of November.
For the month of November, Nonfarm payrolls grew by a better-than-expected 94,000 fueled by growth in the areas of professional and technical services, health care and food services, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Economists were projecting jobs to grow by 70,000 from 166,000 jobs created in the month of October.
Employment, however, continued to languish in manufacturing and in several housing-related industries, including construction, credit intermediation and real estate.
The unemployment rate held at 4.7% percent, while the average hourly earnings rose by $0.08 over the month, the Labor Department reported as well.
Separately, investors brushed off downgrades by Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc. (NYSE: MER) to "sell" from "neutral" on American Express Company (NYSE: AXP), Capital One Financial Corp. (NYSE: COF) and Discover Financial Services (NYSE: DFS), noting that “deterioration in consumer credit and spending will continue to undermine the fundamentals of each and lead to share price declines.”
Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) also cut its rating on Capital One to "underweight" from "overweight," stating that the U.S. consumer finance industry will encounter a worse-than-projected cycle than markets have accounted for.
Here are the day’s biggest percentage gainers and losers, along with top volume leaders, among companies with a market cap between $100 million and $750 million:
Biggest percentage gainers:
• Security Bank Corp. (SBKC), up 30.45%.
• ICO Inc. (ICOC), up 21.7% on strong fourth-quarter results.
• Liquidity Services, Inc. (LQDT), up 18.5% on better-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings and first-quarter guidance above Wall Street.
Biggest percentage losers:
• Smith & Wesson Holding Corp. (SWHC), down 29.1% on news that the gun maker slashed its fiscal 2008 profit forecast for the second time in six weeks.
• Gander Mountain Co. (GMTN), down 5.5%, after the company reported it swung to a loss.
• LJ International Inc. (JADE), down 5.1%.
