MarketWatch top 10 stories June 25 - 29
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- U.S. stocks closed another volatile week on Friday, notching some of their best point gains of 2012 just a week after closing out with some of the biggest losses of the year.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) ended the week with a 1.9% gain, while the S&P 500 Index (SPX) rose 2% over the past five sessions.
The Nasdaq (COMP) closed out the week with a 1.5% advance.
Europe's economic crisis and the region's political and economic ideas to solve it dominated the news again this week. Reports that the group is closer now than before to taking some unified action to relieve pressure on so-called peripheral states drove the market on Friday. Read Market Snapshot on MarketWatch
Auto parts retailer
Earlier this week the company warned its second-quarter sales and profit would not meet earlier forecasts. That news spread throughout the sector and also hit Pep Boys (PBY) and
The shares rose 41% this week, including a 26% jump on Friday after the firm posted fiscal first-quarter results.
Friday's advance lifted most assets with commodities getting a big boost from a sinking dollar and on hopes any improvement might lift demand.
Also please be sure to watch our Week Ahead videos:
U.S. Week Ahead: ECB, U.S. jobs data
Europe's Week Ahead: ECB Rate Decision
Greg Morcroft, assistant managing editor
Supreme Court upholds health-care overhaul
The sweeping health-care overhaul considered to be President Barack Obama's signature legislative achievement was upheld Thursday by the Supreme Court, handing a critical victory to Obama as he makes a bid for re-election. Read more about the Supreme Court's landmark ruling, on MarketWatch
Housing inventory plunges in some places
In the Seattle area, it's not unusual for there to be multiple offers on homes in the most popular neighborhoods.In Washington, D.C., some prospective buyers aren't finding a home they want on the market so they're online daily, hoping a new listing for a property with their requirements will appear.Even hard-hit areas like Phoenix and Sacramento have seen substantial decreases in for-sale inventory.Read Amy Hoak's Home economics column, on MarketWatch
Obama's four biggest failures
Conservatives like to complain that Barack Obama is the most liberal president we've ever had, a closet Marxist who's determined to turn America into a socialist hell. Actual liberals, socialists and closet Marxists have a different view: Obama is pragmatic moderate who resembles Dwight Eisenhower more than he does Che Guevara. Liberals were early and enthusiastic supporters of Obama in 2008. They liked his anti-war stance, and they were moved by the vision of a less-partisan and more enlightened future they thought they heard in his rhetoric. Read MarketWatch's Rex Nutting on Obama's disappointments
Five cities where renting is a better deal than buying
In theory, plummeting home prices and record-low interest rates should make buying a home cheaper than renting one. But experts say in some parts of the country, it still pays to be a tenant. Despite the incentives to buy now, including record-low interest rates and depressed prices, sales of single-family existing homes slipped 1.5% in May from a month earlier, according to data from the National Association of Realtors. In these five markets renting is a better deal than buying
When it comes to careers, Wall Street has gone from a shining temple of opportunity to a bunker. Behind the transformation lie years of risk-bundling, synthetic investment vehicles and other byzantine, unsustainable profit schemes. When they ultimately blew up, they threw the economy into recession and, like a financial Frankenstein, destroyed many of their own creators' livelihoods.Between January 2008 and January 2010, the finance sector in New York lost 46,500 jobs, the bulk of them in the securities industry.
10 things Amazon won't tell you
Below are the 10 things shoppers should not expect to hear from retail giant Amazon.com. Read MarketWatch Commentary on Amazon
7 equations to build a secure retirement
The Judeo-Christian world has its 10 commandments. Newton has his three laws of motion. And now retirement has its seven equations.Actually, the world of retirement has had these equations for a while, in some cases for hundreds of years. But Moshe Milevsky, a York University professor, has put all these equations into one readable and, truth be told, highly accessible book, "The 7 Most Important Equations for Your Retirement." Read about securing your retirement, on MarketWatch
Ann Curry saga: A confederacy of dunces
Ann Curry, the co-host of NBC's "Today" show who gives new meaning the word "embattled," has left the morning show with her dignity intact.She may be the only one involved in this dreadful media circus who can make that claim. On Thursday morning, we learned that Curry will leave "Today" on a day-to-day basis as co-host but remain with the network as a national and international correspondent. First, she'll probably embark on a well-deserved vacation. Read Jon Friedman commentary on departure of Today Show hostess
Google unveils Nexus 7 tablet at $199
Placing your bets for 2012's second half
Hoping for a better second half of 2012? That's certainly understandable. With the first half of 2012 concluded, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has turned in an anemic year-to-date return that's well below the stock market's long-term average of around 10% annually. But, I surely don't need to remind you, hope is not a strategy. Mark Hulbert tells MarketWatch readers about second-half strategy
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