Zeev's Turnips Patch-No Politics (ZEEV)

[Lane Hall-Witt]

In recent days, news has crossed that BA is cutting 5,000 more jobs; A, 2,500; XRX, 2,400; MWD, 2,200; ING, 1,000; BAC, 900 IT jobs; LEH, 500; GM Saab division, "hundreds" of jobs; UBS Warburg, Houston energy trading division. Also, the City of New York is looking to trim 8,000 jobs; UAL has submitted a restructuring plan to the government calling for 9,000 job cuts; and in Europe Swiss-Swedish engineering conglomerate ABB is looking to cut 50,000 jobs over the next three years.

These are just a few that I jotted down in my notes the past few days, coming on top of the recent cutbacks at firms like AMD, PCS, ITWO, SUNW--.

And we have to bear in mind that we're about 10 months away from the Big Kahuna: cutbacks at the Big Three auto makers when the current UAW contract expires. There's widespread talk of tens of thousands of cutbacks, with a corresponding "ripple-effect multiplier" that says four or five auto-industry jobs are lost for every one job cut by a Big Three firm.

Not that today is the day to worry about any of this: the market has a big breakout going, volume across the tape is huge, and even laggards like BRCD and VECO are shooting the moon!