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The number of Americans filing for initial unemployment insurance climbed last week, the government said Thursday.

There were 464,000 initial jobless claims filed in the week ended July 17, up 37,000 from a revised 427,000 the previous week, the Labor Department said.

The number of claims was much higher than expected. A consensus estimate of economists surveyed by Briefing.com expected new claims to rise to 445,000.

"It’s very disappointing to have this leading indicator of economic conditions jump higher," said John Lonski, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com. "This is the latest reminder of a weak labor market, and the jump preserves worries regarding the adequacy of economic growth."

The 4-week moving average of initial claims, which is calculated to smooth out volatility, was 456,000, up 1,250 from the previous week’s revised average of 454,750.

Continuing claims: The government said 4,487,000 people filed continuing claims in the week ended July 10, the most recent data available. That’s down 223,000 from the preceding week’s upwardly revised 4,710,000 claims.

Economists surveyed by Briefing.com expected ongoing claims to edge lower to 4,600,000 from the unrevised 4,681,000 in the previous week.

The 4-week moving average for ongoing claims fell by 21,500 to 4,567,000 from the preceding week’s revised 4,588,500 no fax payday loans.

Outlook: Lonski said the latest rise in jobless claims is consistent with worries about the labor market, consumer spending and the general health of the U.S. economy.

"The jump in jobless claims signals more coming in the way of a slack labor market that will curb the growth of wages and employment income, and thereby consumer spending," he said. "And this just reinforces a mediocre or lackluster outlook for job growth going forward."

Earlier this month, the government said the U.S. economy lost jobs in June for the first time this year. And Lonski said that given the lack of improvement in the labor market and consumer sentiment, we could be in store for another gloomy jobs report next month.

"This is a warning that we are unlikely to receive an upside surprise in the form of a better-than-expected reading on July payrolls," said Lonski. "Despite doing better in terms of profitability and sales, companies have not stopped laying off staff and are not yet in an expansionary mode." 

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The drug-data provider Epocrates Inc. has filed with the SEC to sell up to an estimated $75 million in an initial public offering.

The company plans to trade on the Nasdaq Global Market with the symbol EPOC.

Epocrates, a leading provider of mobile drug reference tools and interactive services, said it will use the proceeds to pay dividends due to the holders of its Class B preferred stock and for general corporate purposes, including working capital, research and development, sales and marketing, and capital expenditures.

J.P. Morgan Securities Inc. and Piper Jaffray & Co. will serve as joint book-running managers no fax pay day loan. William Blair & Co. LLC. and JMP Securities LLC will act as co-managers.

The company has yet to determine the number of shares to be sold and their price range.

Epocrates has more than 1 million users, including more than 40 percent of U.S. physicians, the company said. Its products are used on popular hand-held devices including the iPhone, iTouch and Blackberry, and Palm, Android and Windows devices.

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Many would-be stock investors are awaiting a perfect storm.

That is a miraculous time when prospects for gains are outstanding, prices are reasonable and risk is minimal.

They shouldn’t hold their breath. In 2008, stock prices were low but prospects dim as our financial system teetered. Gains in 2009 were a rebound from that low point but came as a surprise. In 2010, Europe’s financial weakness has shocked the world.

What’s a novice investor to do? Stop waiting for a sign, say the experts. To be serious about investing, make it a regular part of your life as soon as possible because it is a long-term commitment.

"There’s really never a bad time to start investing," declared Charles Carlson, editor of the DRIP Investor newsletter (www.dripinvestor.com), which focuses on stock dividend reinvestment plans. "The biggest hurdle for people of any age is their concern that they’re getting into the market at the absolute worst time."

History shows that over time, stocks will trend upward, he said, so the greatest success comes from exploiting the power of time — and that is done by getting into the game as soon as possible.

"In the short term, it may be a bad time, but it will change," Carlson said.

You can start at any age and won’t have missed the boat. A 50-year-old probably has another 25 to 30 years ahead, which a long time for money to grow, he said. At 55, you may want your stock portion to be more defensive (blue chip) than aggressive, he acknowledged, but that doesn’t mean a diversified portfolio can’t have a smattering of smaller growth stocks.

"This is a good time for a young person to get into the market," said Mark Salzinger, editor and publisher of the No-Load Fund Investor (www.noloadfundinvestor.com). "Get into a disciplined ‘pay-yourself-first’ plan in which you regularly put a dollar figure in a good growth stock mutual fund."

As your income grows, you can invest more, and during the down market periods you’ll be able to buy more stock, he reasoned.

"There are lots of side issues, such as European debt, but you have a good situation now in regard to equity prices in the U.S. with very low interest rates," Salzinger said. "Company earnings are improving, and the economy is getting better, but there’s still a lot of money on the sidelines."

The bullish argument is a stronger one now than the bearish one, he believes.

"A 40- or 50-year-old who has never invested before is likely to have a very low risk tolerance because they otherwise would have been the market years earlier," said Salzinger.

Vanguard Star Fund is great for such beginners because it provides a diversified portfolio in a single shot, said Salzinger. That "fund of funds" invests in 11 Vanguard funds of various styles and managers to build a diversified portfolio that is 62 percent stocks, 25 percent intermediate- and long-term bonds and 12 percent short-term bonds.

The "no-load" (no sales charge) Vanguard Star is up 24 percent over the past 12 months and has a 10-year annualized return of 5 percent. It requires an initial minimum investment of $1,000 and has a low annual expense ratio of 0.37 percent.

A balanced fund of stocks and bonds is a typical starting point. Among stocks, first-time investors also can choose from many funds, with those based on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index or broader stock indexes some good examples.

Diversification, which leads to less volatility and steadier returns, involves building a portfolio of stocks and bonds with variety even within each asset class. Most funds permit investing with a relatively small amount. Investors with larger amounts typically add individual stocks or bonds.

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Hospital giant HCA Inc. — co-parent of HealthONE, the largest health care system in metro Denver — on Sunday filed its much-anticipated initial public offering, reported first-quarter earnings of $388 million and announced a $500 million distribution to stockholders.

Nashville-based HCA, which operates 162 hospitals and 106 freestanding surgery centers across the country and in England, expects to raise $4 billion with an IPO, though underwriters could bump that figure up to $4.6 billion.

About $2.5 billion will come in the form of newly issued shares, with the rest coming from current shareholders who will sell on the public market.

HCA spokesman Ed Fishbough declined to comment.

In Colorado, HCA co-owns Denver-based HealthONE with the nonprofit Colorado Health Foundation.

HealthONE hospitals include the Medical Center of Aurora, North Suburban Medical Center, Presbyterian/St. Luke’s Medical Center, Rocky Mountain Hospital for Children, Rose Medical Center, Swedish Medical Center and Sky Ridge Medical Center.

Analysts and other industry-watchers have been expecting HCA to make a return to the public market for some time, especially since the passage of health care reform legislation in March.

Sheryl Skolnick of CRT Capital Group said all eyes will be on HCA as a “bellwether” of the equity markets’ appetite for health care investment. How the market receives HCA could prompt others to follow suit, she said.

“There are quite a few other companies that are going to be watching this very closely,” Skolnick said.

The HCA IPO is the largest private-equity backed offering since the financial crisis began three years ago, according to Thomson Reuters data low fee pay day loans. It’s the third largest deal announced so far this year worldwide, and the largest in the U.S. — three times larger than the next biggest U.S. deal, according to Bloomberg.

Last month, Tampa, Fla. -based investment firm Validus Group announced it would go public in a $1.5 million offering.

HCA is stepping out on solid footing. In the first quarter, the company’s revenue rose 1.5 percent to $7.54 billion while net income climbed 7.8 percent. As of March 31, HCA had about $25.9 billion of debt, or about 4.9 times its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.

“As a public company, we expect to have improved access to capital markets that we will be able to use to both reduce outstanding debt and reinvest into the growth of the company,” CEO Richard Bracken said in a conference call with investors.

This will mark the third time that HCA has gone public since its founding in the mid-1960s. The company has been private since 2006 when a private investor group that included affiliates of Bain Capital, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and Merrill Lynch Global Private Equity joined HCA founder Thomas Frist Jr. in a $33 billion leveraged buyout.

With the filing, HCA now enters a quiet period until the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commision reviews its registration statement, a process that could take up to three months. Once the SEC signs off, HCA executives will go on the road making presentations to potential institutional investors and a stock price will be assigned.

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Albany Molecular Research Inc. reported a drop in net income for the first quarter.

The Albany, New York-based drug discovery firm had net income for the three months of $66,000, or less than a penny a share. That includes expenses from AMRI’s February purchase of Excelsyn Ltd, a chemical development company in Wales. Without those costs, first quarter income would have been $641,000, or 2 cents a share.

In the first quarter of 2009, AMRI had net income of $1.9 million, or 6 cents a share.

Revenue for the first quarter was $49.3 million, down from $54.0 million a year earlier. Contract revenue declined 10 percent, and recurring royalties from sales of the prescription antihistimine Allegra, and some generic forms of that drug, dipped 3 percent.

Mark Frost, chief financial officer of AMRI (Nasdaq: AMRI) said the company expects second quarter contract revenue to be up 11 percent from a year ago, to about $43 million. He put second quarter revenue at between $7 million and $8 million.

Frost expects the company to report a second quarter loss of between 3 cents and 7 cents a share.

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Think Dow 11,000 is a big deal? Think again.

The Dow Jones industrial average briefly hit the milestone Friday for the first time in 18 months before closing at 10,997.

But Wall Street analysts who study key stock index levels say all the attention paid to 11,000 is more like a big distraction. They worry that investors are ignoring another number at their peril: the surprisingly low volume of trading. As stocks have risen over the past year, the volume reflects the vulnerability of a rally riding on the shoulders of relatively few participants.

And that has given pause to even the bulls.

"It worries a lot of us," says Wellington Shields’ Frank Gretz, a technical analyst who specializes in pinpointing market levels at which stocks might suddenly rise or fall. He wonders whether the volume signals that the rally could soon peter out, like the big surges that preceded steep declines in the 1930s in the United States and in Japan more recently.

Louise Yamada, a 29-year veteran of technical analysis who heads an eponymous firm in New York, says she’s not just concerned but confused.

"Why is the market going up?" she asks. "You usually don’t see advances without volume."

The widely cited Dow index, which tracks stocks of 30 companies, is up 70 percent from its lows of more than a year ago. The climb has been one of the strongest in history, and it may herald a strong recovery. But it has been propelled by relatively few trades.

The 200-day moving average volume on the New York Stock Exchange is now at 1.2 billion shares, down from 1.6 billion, a drop of nearly 25 percent, a year ago.

In other words, if there is wisdom in crowds, the stock market is getting dumber.

One reason volume is lower: Main Street investors have largely stayed out of the market, abandoning it to hedge funds, pension funds and other professional investors. Last year, individuals, as tracked by mutual fund flows, yanked $14 billion from stock mutual funds.

Bulls argue that the Dow’s breaching 11,000 may convince ordinary investors that the rally will last. And that will bring a flood of money into the market, pushing indexes higher.

But Janney Montgomery Scott analyst Dan Wantrobski isn’t convinced.

"Main Street investors need confidence in the economy more than the Dow at 11,000," he says. "They need a drop in the unemployment rate."

On that front, there are signs of hope.

Last week the Labor Department reported that 162,000 jobs were generated in March, the most in three years. The unemployment rate was unchanged, at 9.7 percent.

Another boost to the outlook came Thursday from retailers: Sales at stores open at least a year rose 9 percent last month.

And, of course, there are plenty of other indicators of stock market health besides volume.

Technical analysts will make your head dizzy with their talk of "double tops," "double bottoms" and "Fibonacci retracements." Some of them prefer to make the case for a bull market.

For starters, they like the fact that most stocks in various indexes have rallied, and not just a few powerful ones, as is sometimes the case. They also note that nearly nine out of 10 stocks are trading above their 200-day average price — a bullish sign.

Then there’s the argument that maybe volume isn’t really all it’s cracked up to be.

In the last bull market, the trend was completely opposite the one today. The 200-day average daily volume surged to 1.7 billion shares in late 2007, up more than a third from early 2002, as individuals grew more confident in the rally.

As it turns out, they should have sat on their cash. In October 2007, shortly after volume peaked, the market began to collapse. Investors will still be down 22 percent — even if the Dow does eventually close above 11,000.

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Adobe Systems Inc. is expected to post a drop in first quarter earnings to 37 cents a share from 45 cents last year, but that didn't deter at least one analyst from expecting "solid" financials on Tuesday.

Deutsche Bank analyst Tom Ernst Jr. kept his buy rating on San Jose-based Adobe (NASDAQ:ADBE), saying he expects to see 39 cents a share on $835 million in revenue.

The consensus number from analysts is for $827.4 million in revenue, compared to $786.4 million last year.

Ernst said he expects Adobe to benefit from an improving economy and in coming quarters should see a bump from the release of Creative Suite 5, the new version of the company's flagship software no teletrack payday loans.

Ernst raised his price target on Adobe shares to $46 from $44. Its shares dropped about 3 percent on Friday to $34.67, a few dollars below its 52-week high of $38.20.

Investors are watching to see how Adobe's acquisition of Web analytics company Omniture in October plays out, but Ernst said in his note to investors that he believes the launch of CS5 will return Adobe shares "to more typical premium levels".

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The Federal Reserve is in talks with money-market mutual funds on agreements to help drain as much as $1 trillion from the financial system as policy makers prepare for the first interest-rate increase since June 2006, according to a person familiar with the discussions.

The central bank is looking to the money-market mutual fund industry which manages $3.2 trillion in assets because the 18 so-called primary dealers that trade directly with the Fed have a capacity limited to about $100 billion, estimates Joseph Abate, a money-market strategist at Barclays Capital in New York.

Money-market funds may welcome the opportunity to trade with the Fed after the financial crisis reduced the supply of safe assets in which they can invest. In one example of demand for such assets, auctions on four-week Treasury bills have attracted an average of $5.47 in bids for every dollar sold this year, compared with an average of $3.77 last year, according to Bloomberg data. Yields on the four-week bill were quoted at four basis points at 3:47 p.m. in New York trading from 18 basis points a year ago.

“There are lots of great credit stories, but the option of going with the Fed and the government — it takes away part of the risk,” said Deborah Cunningham, a chief investment officer at Federated Investors Inc. in Pittsburgh, which manages $318 billion in money-market investments. Conversations with the Fed “seem pretty positive,” she said, adding that the Fed and the industry should be in a position to conduct operations before the end of the year.

Fannie, Freddie

Chairman Ben S. Bernanke yesterday charted ways the Fed might withdraw record monetary stimulus pumped into the economy to fight the recession. Among the central bank’s tools are reverse repurchase agreements, in which the Fed sells securities with the intention of repurchasing them at a later date.

The Fed is also considering reverse repurchase agreements with mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, said the person familiar with the discussions. Freddie Mac spokeswoman Sharon McHale declined to comment. Fannie Mae spokesman Brian Faith also declined to comment.

“To further increase its capacity to drain reserves through reverse repos,” Bernanke said, the Fed is “in the process of expanding the set of counterparties with which it can transact” beyond primary dealers of government securities.

The primary dealers, which are required to bid at auctions of Treasury notes and trade directly with the New York Fed’s markets desk, include BNP Paribas Securities Corp., Banc of America Securities LLC and Goldman Sachs & Co.

‘Extended Period’

Bernanke repeated yesterday that while interest rates are likely to stay low for an “extended period,” the Fed in “due course” will need to “begin to tighten monetary conditions to prevent the development of inflationary pressures paydayloan.”

The central bank has created more than $1 trillion in excess reserves in the banking system through its purchases of $300 billion of Treasury debt and $1.25 trillion of mortgage- backed securities. To put upward pressure on the federal funds rate, the Fed may need to drain as much as $800 billion, Abate estimates.

One potential tightening tool is the interest rate on reserves that commercial banks keep on deposit at the Fed. By raising that rate, the central bank “will be able to put significant upward pressure on all short-term interest rates,” Bernanke said.

The Fed can also use reverse repos to shrink the quantity of reserves, which in turn gives it “tighter control over short-term interest rates,” he said.

Risk for Fed

Fed officials face the risk that when they start to tighten policy by raising the rate they pay banks on reserves, other market rates may not follow. That would keep monetary conditions too loose in an expansion.

“They still seem nervous that they might not be able to control short rates, and if they can’t control short rates, how do they tighten?” said Mark Spindel, chief investment officer at Potomac River Capital LLC, which manages $200 million in Washington.

The Fed has sought to keep the benchmark rate in a range of zero to 0.25 percent since December 2008. The federal funds rate is now 0.13 percent, even though banks can earn 0.25 percent by keeping their money on deposit at the Fed.

One reason for the discrepancy is that Fannie and Freddie have become “significant sellers” of funds in the overnight market and aren’t eligible to place cash on deposit at the Fed, according to a December research paper by the New York Fed.

Some hurdles remain in the Fed’s efforts to secure bigger repo capacity. Fed officials and mutual-fund industry representatives are working on a structure that would allow funds to invest in relatively liquid assets that can be sold in seven days, while allowing the central bank to avoid having to renew billions of dollars in transactions each week.

“There needs to be liquidity,” said Cunningham of Federated. “A reverse repo contract is not considered to be liquid in the context of anything beyond seven days.”

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Chicago-based Berlin Packaging said Monday it will acquire All-Pak Inc., a packaging supplier based in Bridgeville, near Pittsburgh.

Berlin Packaging describes itself as a "full-service supplier of plastic, glass and metal containers and closures." All-Pak evolved from the former Cunningham Glass Co., which has been in the Pittsburgh area for some 50 years.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed Monday, and it was not clear whether any Pittsburgh-area layoffs would result from the acquisition.

According to a news release, the combined company, which will be headquartered in Chicago, will have annual revenue approaching $500 million. All-Pak will maintain a "significant operational presence at all of its geographical locations," according to the release.

The acquisition is expected to close by the end of February, according to the release.

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European Central Bank President Jean- Claude Trichet is struggling to convince investors that the euro region shouldn’t be punished for Greece’s budget problems.

As the Greek government tries to control its record deficit and the country’s bonds slide, Trichet yesterday said the economy of the 16-nation euro area is solid and its budget shortfall will probably be smaller than those of the U.S. and Japan this year. The euro nevertheless fell more than half a cent against the dollar and Spanish and Portuguese stocks dropped on concern they are in a similar predicament to Greece.

Trichet “did not convince me,” said Stuart Thomson, who helps manage $100 billion at Ignis Asset Management in Glasgow, Scotland. “Where does he think the Greek, Spanish and Portuguese economies will be three years from now? Their austerity measures will weigh on the euro area as a whole.”

Trichet has been forced to fend off questions about the survival of the euro as investors doubt Greece’s ability to cut its deficit from 12.7 percent of gross domestic product to below the European Union’s 3 percent limit. As concern spreads to Spain and Portugal’s rising debt burdens, Trichet will try to stress the need for fiscal prudence without inflaming skepticism that it can be achieved.

“Something has to happen to turn credibility around,” said Paul Mortimer-Lee, head of Market Economics at BNP Paribas in London. “The market’s just saying it’s not believable. It might have to get worse before it gets better.”

Markets Shudder

Spanish stocks dropped the most in 15 months yesterday and Portugal led declines in government bonds. The euro fell to $1.3728, its lowest level against the dollar since last May. It has dropped more than 9 percent since Nov. 25.

Greek bonds have tumbled in the past two months, pushing the yield on the country’s 10-year debt above 7 percent, the highest since 1999, the year the euro was introduced. The premium investors charge to hold Greek 10-year bonds over the benchmark German bund has widened to 356 basis points, about 10 times what it was two years ago.

The ECB yesterday left its benchmark rate at a record low of 1 percent and Trichet signaled the bank is in no rush to raise borrowing costs as the economy recovers gradually from its worst recession since World War II.

Still, Trichet said the “solidity” of the euro area “is not necessarily very well known” and its situation compares “very flatteringly with a number of other industrialized countries.”

Gradual Recovery

The euro-area economy will grow 0.8 percent this year and 1.2 percent in 2011, according to the ECB’s December forecasts. It contracted 4 percent last year, the European Commission estimates.

“Trichet is still trying to persuade markets that they should be looking at the euro area as a whole, which does not look that bad, rather than at individual countries, some of which look extremely fragile,” said Marco Annunziata, chief economist at UniCredit SpA in London.

Spain’s public debt will rise to 74 percent of GDP by 2011 from 54 percent last year, according to European Commission forecasts. Greece’s debt will increase to 135 percent of GDP from 113 percent, and Portugal’s will increase to 91 percent from 77 percent, the EU estimates.

Greece’s consolidation plans, which call for about 10 billion euros ($13.7 billion) of spending cuts and revenue increases this year, are more ambitious than any budget reduction achieved by euro-region countries since the 1970s, according to ING Group.

Greece’s biggest union yesterday approved a second mass strike this month to protest the spending cuts and tax collectors began a 48-hour walkout, illustrating the difficulty Prime Minister George Papandreou faces in implementing his plan.

“We expect and we are confident that the Greek government will take all the decisions that will permit them to reach that goal,” Trichet said. Additional proposals announced by Greece this week to freeze public-sector wages and revamp the pension system “are steps in the right direction,” he said.

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