From a CNN e-mail I received shortly after the close of Friday's stock markets (this was the entire message):
Wall Street fights off mortgage-risk-induced woes to end the week higher, with small gains Friday.
Anyone reading this e-mail would have thought that this was a net ho-hum week on The Street. After all, the e-mail merely said that the week ended "higher."
"Higher"? More like "way, way higher" -- in fact, the best single-week point gain in four years:
Mar 23 04:44 PM US/Eastern
NEW YORK (AP) - Wall Street secured its best week in four years Friday, rising modestly after a surprise jump in home sales eased concern that frailty in the housing market will hurt economic growth.
..... According to preliminary calculations, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 19.87, or 0.16 percent, to 12,481.01. The Dow rose for five straight sessions, picking up 370.60 for its biggest weekly point gain since March, 2003; that translated to a 3.06 percent rise for the week.
Broader stock indicators also closed higher. The Standard & Poor's 500 index advanced 1.57, or 0.11 percent, to 1,436.11, and the Nasdaq composite index rose 4.44, or 0.18 percent, to 2,456.18.
For the week the S&P 500 rose 3.54 percent and the Nasdaq gained 4.52 percent.
Smart Money also noted yesterday that "The Dow has recovered about 46% of its largest single-day loss of the year, which took place nearly a month ago."
So how many busy people who got CNN's e-mail didn't hear the real news anywhere else, and therefore think that Wall Street didn't do anything notable this past week? Once again, the Formerly Mainstream Media figures out a way to hit the mute button on a piece of good economic news. If I visited the CNN newsroom's business section yesterday, I half-expect that I would have found a "mission accomplished" banner hanging in a prominent place.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
