THE MESS ON WALL STREET – AT 8:55 P.M. ET:  The standard line going around New York has been that, while the recession isn't over for the nation, it's over for Wall Street, and times are flying again.  Uh, not so fast, Jones.  From the Washington Post:

The carnage of the last two days of this week has wiped out all the gains of the year to date.

If Thursday's trading day was apocalyptic, Friday's was merely chaotic and unpredictable. Stocks opened up slightly, following a better-than-expected April jobs report, then fell immediately off the cliff, plunging to a 10:30 a.m. trough.

They spent the rest of mid-day trying to climb back up and the Dow briefly turned positive before the recovery rally ran out of steam and stocks eventually stabilize, albeit in negative territory.

The Dow closed down 1.3 percent at 10,379.60. Bye-bye, 11,000.

The broader S&P 500 closed down 1.5 percent at 1,110.86 and the tech-heavy Nadaq got hit the hardest, closing down 2.2 percent at 2,265.64.

All three major indexes have had their entire 2010 gains wiped out. Today, they stand almost exactly where they stood on January 1. So that's discouraging.

COMMENT:  Yeah, I'd say so.  But maybe it's healthy that the Wall Street economy and the real economy mesh a little. 

We're far from out of the woods, especially as the Obama administration seems determined to spend us into bankruptcy.  While jobs were added last month, more job seekers entered the force, pushing the unemployment rate up to just under 10 percent.  That's not a number the White House wants to take into the midterm elections.

May 7, 2010