Shares of Vera Bradley Down on Positive Earnings Results

Despite being up in premarket trading, shares of Vera Bradley (NYSE:VRA) are trading lower after the firm reported its fiscal Q1 earnings beat estimates and it reaffirmed its guidance of FY 2012. The company reported first quarter EPS of $0.31, beating estimates of $0.29 per share. Revenue for the quarter rose 15.6% to $117.2 million, again above estimates of $116.86 million.Vera Bradley said it was able to offset higher cotton prices and labor costs during the period by boosting sales 34% year-over-year at its own locations and 26% at its online segment.The company’s shares are falling in early trading, down almost 7% to $20.29.

Job Growth Drastically Slows in May

Bad news in terms of job growth in May. The Labor Department reported employers only created 69,000 jobs last month. Economists had been expecting payrolls in the range of 150,000. This is the smallest job growth number since May of last year. This, compounded with a rise in the unemployment rate from 8.1 to 8.2 percent. This was mostly caused by more people flooding into the labor market, including new graduates and other unemployed who started looking for work again.There could be many factors contributing to this slow down in job growth. Europe’s financial crisis and the slowing Chinese economy all could be factors. The one staggering statistic though shows that there still needs to be a lot of growth to bring the country back to pre-recession levels. American employment is still 5 million jobs short of where it was back in December 2007.

WedMD Appoints New CEO

The most popular online medical diagnosis website is getting new leadership. Cavan Redmond, a former executive at Pfizer, was named WebMD’s (NASDAQ:WBMD) Chief Executive Officer on Friday. Anthony Vuolo had been serving at interim CEO since January while the company found a new leader. He will be returning to his original job as chief financial officer. The search for a new CEO came in January because of a decision to put WebMD up for sale. Former CEO Wayne Gattinella was ousted because of that decision. Since then, the company has been looking for his replacement.WebMD has been down since calling off the sale of the company and is still slightly down on this news, lower by four tenths of a percent to $22.93.

QE3 Back on Agenda, It Could Be Fed’s the Last Bullet

Disappointing job data drove everything today. 8.2% unemployment rate and only 69k new jobs added in the month of May, this is not what America expected heading into the first day of June. Next step for the Fed is unclear, but the correction in the market brings QE3 back on the table. Fed needs a big drop like today’s to reconsider it. However, in my humble opinion, I don’t think QE3 will help much. The effect of quantitative easing is less and less; you already saw QE2 was a lot less effective than QE1 and I expect QE3 to follow the trend. With all due respect to the Fed, I think we could put out all these temporary feel good measures, but eventually we will have to pay for everything, the dollar will have to pay for everything. We can print more money, and we’ll have to live with the consequence.

Treasury at Record Low, Did You Think of Refi

Treasury at Record Low, Did You Think of Refi? Terrible job report is what we have to live with but what we can do is look for something relatively safe. So the flight to safety trade continues. 10yr Treasury yield dropped to as low as 1.43 today and now sits at 1.46. That is unbelievable; think about it, several years ago, if any manager told you that one day the 10yr yield would break 1.5, you probably would have him or her dismissed. Same thing on the 30yr Treasury yield, record low at 2.52%, which brings me to the key question: is now the best time to refinance your mortgage? The short answer is yet because rates have never been this low. But do handle the process carefully. Do expect your refinance to take 60 days or longer to close, compare to 30 days before the housing crisis. Also banks might experience a logjam given the expected spike in applications, so do make sure to lock in the low rate even if the process takes longer.

Dow Erases This Year’s Gain, Market in Correction Territory

Market is in panic mode after the very disappointing job numbers out of Washington this morning, combined with the overnight weakness in Europe and slowing growth in China. Dow Jones erased all its YTD gain and is trading on the negative side. 12,217 is where we finished 2011 at, and today we closed at 12118 after dropping 2.2%. This sends us into correction territory, which is defined as a 10% decline from the recent peak. Gold surged above the 1600 mark after sinking below it for the most of May and crude oil edged lower to $83/barrel. This is certainly not the way we want to start off June, but here we have it. For more news and updates, keep it right here at the Financial News Network. I’m Julia Sun, bringing you up-to-date news from New York City.

Weekly Market Wrap: June 1, 2012

This twenty second trading week of 2012 comes to a close with investors fretting over losing all of their 2012 gains after the Dow plumetted 280 points following a lackluster jobs report. Hi.

Daily Market Wrap: June 1, 2012

A very disappointing government jobs report sent stocks sharply lower today, with all the major indices in negative territory. Just 69,000 jobs were added in May and the unemployment rate ticked up to 8.2 percent.

Analyst Moves: BLK, TSO

Blackrock (BLK) was upgraded today by Goldman Sachs (GS) to buy as the stock has underperformed relative to its peers. A $200 price target was set.

Friday 6/1 Insider Buying Report: TTI, HERO

Bargain hunters are wise to pay careful attention to insider buying, because although there are many various reasons for an insider to sell a stock, presumably the only reason they would use their hard-earned dollars to make a purchase, is that they expect to make money. Today we look at two noteworthy recent insider buys.