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Investors that did cheer the August jobs report, they saw it, it's not too hot, not too cold. Employers added about 128, 000 jobs in August, which is in line with expectations. And ah, the jobs numbers for the two previous months were revised higher so that's, that's some positive numbers we're gonna start with. At the same time the unemployment rate dipped to 4.7% last month. That is down from July's 4. 8% rate, not a big number crunch there. All right, trading volume, very light, ahead of the 3-day holiday weekend. But the Dow Industrials did rally 83 points, closing at its highest level since mid-May, the NASDAQ adding four-tenths of one percent. The market gonna be closed on Monday.
All right, the employment picture may be showing signs of strength, but the news from the auto sector mixed last month, Ford says its vehicle sales dropped 11. 6% from the same period a year ago. The company cited poor sales of its SUVs and trucks, which Ford had depended on for most of its revenue. Daimler Chrysler's US auto sales fell 4. 2%. Starting today, Chrysler offering 0% financing until the end of September. The GM, still the world's largest automaker, bucked the downtrend; its vehicle sales grew almost 4%. The upbeat results marked just the second time this year that the automaker has posted an increase in sales. GM also said that it would cut its North American production target by 12% or 150, 000 units. Toyota, meanwhile, continued taking market share away from US car companies. Its sales jumped 17% last month.
All right, in other business news, a US court has ordered tobacco companies to stop promoting their low tar and light cigarettes as healthier than other brands. But now five of the largest cigarette makers have asked the courts, "Do we have to do that everywhere?" I mean, they want actually to continue advertising cigarettes on the low tar, the light brands outside of the US. Even though the judge says that those labels are misleading. Of course they wanna keep selling overseas.
And anywhere they can, of course, eh, now this request, despite there may be some justification based on markets and then all that sorts of things. But how they justify this request in the end?
You sound like one of their lawyers actually. (Er..), ha ha
Now, I tell you the cigarette companies, of course, their lawyers, I mean, are arguing that prohibiting this kind of marketing would put them at a disadvantage overseas since the rule won't be applied to its non-US competition. So, anyway, let's look at some more topics here.
If you are a parent of a teenager, you are not gonna like this story. Now that you probably don't have a teenager, Richard, but a new study released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that about half of alcohol advertising on the radio is aired during programming aimed at young people. Now this is the first major study of radio advertising since 2003. That is when the alcohol industry vowed to self-regulate itself and stop running ads on programs in which a third or more of the audience is under 21. So another industry that's really enjoying marketing to those that they shouldn't be marketing to, really.
Yeah, a lot of big industry news today, what, what's the, wine industry saying about this?
Well, you know, officials there, are, they are criticizing the study, you know shocker, of course, they say that it was conducted before some of the long-standing advertising contracts had actually expired. All right, that's the latest from here.
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Vocabulary
Buck—verb. 1) to resist or oppose obstinately; 2) to force a way through or proceed against (an obstacle): The plane bucked a strong headwind.
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