US MARKET 9.7.2009

Wall Street erased most of its losses by the close Wednesday, as investors set aside concerns about the economy to gear
up for the quarterly reporting period, which got underway after the closing bell with Alcoa. Stocks slipped through most of
Wednesday as investors continued to worry about the economy and the quarterly reporting period in the aftermath of a big run
up. But after touching fresh multi-month lows in the afternoon, stocks bounced back. The Dow Jones industrial average gained
0.2% (+14.8 pts, close 8,178.4). The Nasdaq ended just unchanged (+1.0 pts, close 1,747.2) and the S&P 500 index lost 0.2%
(-1.5 pts, close 879.6). In currency trading, the dollar gained versus the euro and fell versus the yen. U.S. light crude oil for
August delivery fell US$2.79 to settle at US$60.14 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. (CNNmoney)


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U.S. apartment vacancies rose to their highest in 22 years in 2Q09 as job losses cut tenant demand and more units came
to market. Vacancies climbed to 7.5% from 6.1% a year earlier, New York-based real estate research firm Reis Inc. said
yesterday. The last time landlords had so much empty space was in 1987, when vacancies reached 7.6% as the Standard &
Poor’s 500 Index plummeted 23% in the last three months of that year. Job losses and falling wages are shrinking the pool of
potential renters, defying forecasts that prospective homebuyers would rent rather that purchase as house prices decline.
Asking rents for apartments fell 0.6% q-o-q in 2Q09, Reis said. That matched the rate of change in 1Q09, the biggest drop
since Reis began reporting such data in 1999. Asking rents dropped 0.7% y-o-y to an average US$1,040 a month.
(Bloomberg)
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