With Stocks at Three-Month Highs, Wall Street Awaits Fed
The August jobs report may have been the fuel the Federal Reserve needed to unleash its stimulus. The Fed meets this Wednesday and Thursday, and has that major data point to discuss -- only 96,000 jobs were created in August, as the unemployment rate dipped to 8.1% because hundreds of thousands of people quit their job searches altogether. Despite the lackluster report, stocks rose slightly Friday and capped off their best week in three months. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq each jumped 2.25%; the Dow Industrials rose a more modest 1.65%.
Futures this Monday morning are slightly lower with the Dow set to lose 15 points at the bell. The U.S. Treasury will sell $18 billion of AIG (NYSE:AIG) shares in a public offering. The sale will make the U.S. government a minority shareholder in the insurer for the first time in four years as Treasury's stake gets reduced to less than 20%. The government rescued AIG for $182 billion during the height of the financial crisis. Toys R Us is expected to announce a kids tablet later today. The Tabeo will be available Oct. 1 for $150, and you can only buy it in Toys R Us stores. This way the toy retailer hopes to counter "showrooming," when shoppers go into a store to sample a product and then buy it cheaper online. Three rival children's tablets have all cut their prices to $150 in anticipation of Toys R Us' announcement. JetBlue (NASDAQ:JBLU) is letting cats and dogs under twenty pounds travel unlimited for three months for $299. The "All Your Pet Can Jet" program runs from Sept. 7 through the end of the year.