Wall Street Greek: Business Day: Challenger, ADP & Procter & Gamble

Visit the front pages of Wall Street Greek to see our current coverage of economic reports and financial markets. Today's question: In your view, is a diminishing rate of job shedding, as indicated by the business day's data, more important than the fact that unemployment is still rising. Comment below - we publish comments three times daily.

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Business Day

This morning offered two leading monthly employment reports and the weekly mortgage activity data. Procter & Gamble also reported results this morning and Cisco Systems is slated to report after the close of trading.

Challenger, Gray & Christmas Job-Cuts Report

Challenger reported July job-cuts moderated in July, when compared against the prior year result. This change marked the first year-to-year improvement since late 2007. Announced corporate layoffs amounted to 97,373 in July, versus 103,312 posted in the prior year period. That's the good news, but here's the bad... When compared against June, announced layoffs actually rose; June's tally was 74,393. This mixed news has likely neutralized itself. Also, the month-to-month comparison is unadjusted for seasonality and crosses into the tired summer month of July, weakening its impact.

ADP Private Employment Report

ADP's monthly reporting of the private sector labor environment showed nonfarm private employment decreased by 371K, a much improved rate of loss versus June's 463K revised job shedding. That's good news, but recall our warning in our "Week Ahead" copy. The private employment report does not take public jobs into account, and states and municipalities are putting all sorts of employees before the firing line in order to adjust for lost tax income.

Mortgage Activity

Contracted 30-year fixed rates fell to 5.17%, from 5.36% on average, driving a gain in refinance activity. The Market Composite Index of mortgage activity improved 4.4% on a 7.2% Refinance Index gain. The Purchase Index increased by 0.9%, after no change the prior week. The MBA noted that refinance activity is up some 35% since its recent low at the end of June (on relatively higher rates).

Procter & Gamble Reports

Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG) forecasts its forward quarter sales are down, and the company sees 0-3% organic revenue decline for the period coming. That sour bit of news ruined the meal offered by P&G for its current quarter. Procter & Gamble earned $0.80 for its fiscal fourth quarter ended in June, and that was above its forecast range of $0.74-$0.79. P&G's result also beat the analysts' consensus of $0.79, according to Yahoo Finance. That offers no solace to shareholders, who are watching their stock down 3% in the early going.

Corporate Earnings Schedule

The earnings schedule includes 99 Cents Only (NYSE: NDN), Agrium (NYSE: AGU), American Axle (NYSE: AXL), Aqua America (NYSE: ATR), Baker Hughes (NYSE: BHI), Boyd Gaming (NYSE: BYD), Cisco Systems (Nasdaq: CSCO), Corrections Corp. (NYSE: CXW), Dean Foods (NYSE: DF), Devon Energy (NYSE: DVN), Eagle Bulk Shipping (Nasdaq: EGLE), Fortress Investment Group (NYSE: FIG), Foster Wheeler (Nasdaq: FWLT), Garmin (Nasdaq: GRMN), Given Imaging (Nasdaq: GIVN), Healthsouth (NYSE: HLS), Imperial Sugar (Nasdaq: IPSU), Marsh & McLennan (NYSE: MMC), News Corp. (NYSE: NWS), Overseas Shipholding (NYSE: OSG), Owens Corning (NYSE: OC), Petrobras (NYSE: PZE), Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG), Prudential Financial (NYSE: PRU), Safeguard Scientifics (NYSE: SFE), Service Corp. (NYSE: SCI), Sunoco (NYSE: SUN), Allstate (NYSE: ALL), Tsakos Energy (NYSE: TNP), Vonage (NYSE: VG), XTO Energy (NYSE: XTO) and many more.