Direct Edge claimed a record 12.9% matched market share in U.S. cash equities last month as heavy trade in Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C) shares drove more investors to the electronic-trading platform. Jersey City, N.J.-based Direct Edge reported that its average daily volume more than doubled from year-earlier levels to 1.75 billion shares as overall U.S. cash equities volume rose about 8% over August 2008. Much of those gains can be attributed to trading in Citi, which has seen its shares change hands at a blistering pace, according to The Wall Street Journal
Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE: LUV) said Friday that traffic in August rose 1.0% while capacity fell 6.1% compared with the same month a year ago. Load factor, or the percentage of the plane filled with passengers, increased to 80.2% from 74.6%, according to Marketwatch.
The U.S. jobless rate jumped to 9.7 percent in August, the highest since 1983. Employers cut an additional 216,000 jobs; reinforcing concern that consumer spending will slow even as the economy stabilizes. The increase in the unemployment rate from 9.4 percent exceeded forecasts. The smaller-than-anticipated drop in payrolls was the least in a year, and followed a decrease of 276,000 in July that was larger than previously reported, Labor Department data showed today in Washington. –Bloomberg
IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said he still sees "serious downside risks" to the world financial system and that the recovery will be sluggish and possibly jobless. "Mounting delinquencies mean banks remain under strain, with developments in the commercial real estate sector of particular concern," Strauss-Kahn said in prepared remarks for the annual Bundesbank lecture in Berlin. "Private securitization markets are still impaired. And households and the financial sector continue to deleverage," as reported by Marketwatch.
Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM) yesterday received notice from the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) that the company has regained compliance with the NYSE’s minimum price standard for continued listing of its common stock. On November 12, 2008, the NYSE notified Fannie Mae that it had failed to satisfy one of the NYSE’s standards for continued listing of its common stock because the average closing price of its common stock during the 30 preceding trading days had been less than $1.00 per share. Applicable NYSE rules and procedures provided the company with a cure period that would expire on October 15, 2009, as a result of the NYSE’s temporary suspension of its minimum price listing requirement earlier this year, according to PRNewswire
-Jutia Group
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