Market comments for Aug. 25th 2011

There are two major news pieces affecting the market this morning. First was the unexpected announcement that Steve Jobs had resigned as Apple's CEO. The second piece of news was that Initial Jobless Claims were up 5,000 to 417K for the past week. While Continuing Claims are down again this week, the fact may be that many people have been out of work for so long that they are no longer eligible for any unemployment benefits. Therefore they are not counted as Unemployed. Bizzaro!

On Friday, Fed Chairman Bernanke will be speaking at a Jackson Hole, Wyoming Conference. Many are looking for his announcement of QE3 in the speech.

Also Friday will be the release of Michigan Sentiment for August. Expectations are for a 55.8 reading. July's reading was miserable at 54.9, so many are expecting a move back up.

Gold continues down after yesterday's drop of about $100/ounce. In early trading it is down again $19/ounce to $1738/ounce now and down from its intraday high of just over $1900.