Market Talk

- Lots of chatter that Obama will appoint a CEO to replace Larry Summers, an idea that irks Paul Krugman. “For one thing, the NEC director is supposed to serve as a coordinator and honest broker among views — not, or at least not primarily, as a decision maker,” Krugman writes. “That’s not what CEOs are paid for — their job is to be decisive, not summarize other peoples’ arguments.”

- Blockbuster filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy highlights how the mighty have fallen compared to the raging success of Netflix, Josh Brown says. “There is a cautionary business tale in here that is both timeless and essential for all investors to understand…It’s a story that’s been told a million times — the complacent giant felled by a nimbler, hungrier upstart with new ideas.”

- Initial jobless claims continue to portray a labor market stuck in neutral. “Make no mistake: The longer the job market remains stuck in a rut, the stronger the case for arguing that we’re suffering a potent bout of structural unemployment,” James Picerno notes.

- Cable giants publicly say the “cord-cutting” trend — consumers giving up cable for Internet video — is just a myth. But Verizon (VZ) CEO Ivan Seidenberg begs to differ, saying the cable bundle will follow wireline telephone as an example of old technology that eventually becomes obsolete. “Young people are pretty smart,” Seidenberg says. “They’re not going to pay for something they don’t need to.”

- The timing of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s $100 million donation to Newark, NJ, public schools is getting the usual scrubbing in the blogosphere. Donation coincides with premiere of “The Social Network,” a movie that doesn’t exactly paint the prettiest picture of Zuckerberg. All Things D blogger Kara Swisher says: “Zuckerberg himself decided to move forward now, sources said, apparently concluding that even if a prominent movie was portraying him as the villain, he did not have to act like one in real life.”

- Existing home sales bounced off a record low and rose a better-than-expected 7.6% in August. But Calculated Risk points out inventory increased 1.5% in August from a year earlier. “The bottom line: Sales were very weak in August — almost exactly at the levels I expected – and will continue to be weak for some time. Inventory is very high, and that will put downward pressure on house prices.”

- Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone tops JD Power’s smartphone satisfaction study for a fourth straight year. But the results weren’t so sweet for Nokia (NOK), ranking below Palm, which isn’t even a public company anymore. “Another humiliating blow for Nokia which continues to struggle for relevance in the smartphone market,” Digital Daily blogger John Paczkowski says. “Incoming CEO Stephen Elop has his work cut out for him.”

- Stock-exchange operators and regulators are moving closer toward replacing new circuit breakers for individual stocks with curbs that would limit trading outside of a set range, WSJ reports.

- In the “Wall Street” sequel, Michael Douglas is splendidly slimy as Gordon Gekko but the rest of the film doesn’t measure up, says Joe Morgenstern.

- F-bomb your way to the top. “Swearing may help you do your @#!%ing job. Yeah, you read that correctly, WSJ’s Deal Journal blog says.

- With earnings season only a few weeks away, Josh Brown notes a pattern that’s developed in last six quarters. “A run up in stocks at the beginning of earnings season’s opening month followed by the almost inevitable denouement as hearts are broken and focus is diverted elsewhere,” he says. “The Ghosts of Earnings Past are haunting the nascent rally even as you read this.”

- Now that the recession is technically over, Yves Smith wonders if this is what a recovery really feels like. “The ugly fact is that serious financial crises take a very long time to resolve and result in a permanent fall in the standard of living,” she writes. “The best we can hope for, absent aggressive government action, is an economy that bumps along at a low level of what is technically growth, but is very far from what most businessmen and consumers would consider healthy.”

- Larry Summers’ decision to step down as one of Obama’s top economic advisers is a long-time coming, FusionIQ CEO Barry Ritholtz says. “Summers was a defender of the status quo…The change people voted for never appeared, and the Summers-led economic team gave us two more years of Bush bailout policies. For that humongous error, his departure is a welcome change.”

- Mark Thoma questions why the Fed’s taking a “wait and see” approach on whether more QE or other stimulative measures are needed for the economy. “The Fed should have learned that it needs to act preemptively from its mistake in dealing with the housing bubble,” Thoma says. “Cleaning up after the fact, which is what ‘wait and see’ amounts to, is inferior to preventing problems before they appear.”

- Google’s M&A department has thrown lots of money at many different ideas, but it’s hard to argue with some of its successful wagers throughout the years, including Android and YouTube, Digital Daily blogger John Paczkowski says. “Of course that’s just two acquisitions out of the 80 or so that Google’s made since 2001,” he notes. “But obviously the threat of a clunker investment or two isn’t going to temper Google’s aggressive acquisition strategy.”

- Bullish sentiment among advisors hit 41.4%, according to the Investors Intelligence weekly sentiment survey, which marks its highest level since early August. But, as Bespoke points out, bullish sentiment has hit that level a few times in recent months, with stocks not experiencing much success in the aftermath. “Will the third time be the charm or are we in for more of the same?”

- Keep an eye on the “quiet expansion” of Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s duties, especially in the aftermath of Larry Summers’ resignation, Yves Smith notes at naked capitalism. “The speculation has long been that he would not stay much beyond the mid-terms, but that looks like a far less sure bet than it did a few months ago.”

- Housing prices continue falling in wake of government’s home-buyer tax credit, dropping to lowest level in nearly six years, according to FHFA home price index. “With the two-year tax credit experience in the rearview mirror, officials probably need to be thinking about going back to the policy drawing board,” Ryan Avent writes.

- The recession’s officially over, but Tyler Cowen says it’s premature to believe the economy’s bottoming-out process is over. “It looks like a recovery only because things were, for a while, so extremely bad. I don’t yet think of us as being in a true recovery mode at all.”

- Runners are abandoning races with quirky distances in favor of the standard marathon or half marathon.

- Good timing for jobless claims to post biggest weekly decline since last summer, James Picerno writes at The Capital Spectator. Drop comes on the heels of two consecutive weekly increases, which prompted fears that the declining trend since March may’ve run its course.

- Even amid the good jobless claims data, keep in mind the pace of firings has diminished, but hiring still seems to be on hold, Miller Tabak’s Peter Boockvar says.

- Financial reform chatter is getting tougher. Larry Summers is the latest to chime in. “We’re certainly emphasizing regulating the bankers now, not supporting the kind of irresponsible growth that we saw historically,” he says. Simon Johnson weighs in.

- Is Google stalling on its “new approach” to China? It’s been a month and Google still censors its search results. “Is the moral high ground the company claimed a month ago proving just a bit too high?” Digital Daily blogger John Paczkowski ponders.

- S&P 500, which firmly traded in overbought territory for months, not finds itself in oversold territory, where it’s been since mid-January, Bespoke Investment Group says.

- If treasury yields break to the upside alongside corporate bond yields, “there is a distinct possibility…that there may be no places to hide in 2010 other than perhaps the much despised US dollar,” says Mike Shedlock, an investment advisor for Sitka Pacific. “Risk is very high, and rising.”

- Dell’s latest deal, acquiring Kace Networks, looks like a “savvy” move.

- Blogs rip Google for privacy concerns surrounding Buzz.

- Furloughs, wage freezes continue at USA Today. “We will evaluate business conditions on a quarterly basis and institute a fair and equitable compensation increase plan as soon as conditions permit,” Gannett Blogger Jim Hopkins reports.

- About a quarter of the 8.4M jobs eliminated since recession began won’t be coming back, according to economists polled in WSJ’s latest survey.