Investors Step on the Gas; Dow Ends Above 10,000

Word on the Street

• General Motors is saying goodbye to the slang term for Chevrolet. The automaker has banned the use of the Chevy name in all of its corporate communications. Alan Batey, Vice-President of Sales for Chevrolet said the slang term is mostly used in the US and Canada and can lead to confusion abroad.
• The Securities and Exchange Commission approved new circuit-breaker rules in an attempt to prevent a repeat of the still-unexplained May 6 stock market drop. The new rules will require the stock exchanges and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority to pause trading in certain individual stocks for five minutes if the price moves 10 percent or more in a five-minute period.
• A new settlement has been reached with first responders and recovery workers injured at the World Trade Center site following the Sept. 11th terrorist attacks. The deal gives more than 10,000 workers a payout of $712.5 million in compensation for health damages they said they suffered.
• Mortgage activity declined last week by about 12 percent and refinancing activity declined for the first time in a month. The Mortgage Bankers Assn. reported that applications for home loans were down overall by 12.2% after adjustments for the Memorial Day weekend and other seasonal factors.
• The number of people filing for ongoing unemployment insurance fell by 3,000 last week to 456,000. The report was the latest in a series hinting the economic recovery was losing some steam.
• The nation’s minority population is steadily rising and now makes up 35 percent of the United States, according to the US Census Bureau population estimates as of July 1, 2009. Official results of the 2010 Census, now being conducted, will come out beginning in December.
• US home foreclosures reached a record for the second consecutive month in May. The monthly foreclosure report from RealtyTrac showed that bank repossessions climbed 44 percent from May 2009 to 93,777.

Other Interesting Tidbits

• The Average Investor Is His Own Worst Enemy – Terry Odean’s research into investor behavior shows how people sabotage themselves.
• How to Get a Job After a Year (or More) Out of Work – Strategies and wisdom for reaching the light at the end of the job-searching tunnel.
• Is Start-Up Savvy in Your DNA? – Ponder this before paying for an MBA: Some entrepreneurial traits are genetic.
• Boy Scout Investing – Bad things happen in the stock market. Be equipped to withstand them by adding hedges to your portfolio. Here are three simple ones.