WASHINGTON – Wall Street took a major hit yesterday. The Dow Jones nearly dropped below 10,000 yet again after a wild ride through the day. The NASDAQ had the worst performance after shedding 1.66 percent (35.87 points), but the S&P 500 (1.45 percent, 15.49 points) and Dow Jones (1.32 percent, 133.96 points) were not far behind.

Luckily for investors, markets picked up at the opening bell today and are expected to stay higher for rest of the day.

According to MarketWatch, Wall Street is abuzz as a result of slightly better figures for initial jobless reports and the monthly trade deficit. While it is certainly positive to see the trade deficit trend down, or see initial jobless claims trend down, the fact remains that these are menial gains.

According to the Labor Department, initial jobless claims for the week ended September 4 dropped by 27,000 from the week before. Unfortunately, the number of initial claims still stood at an unacceptable 451,000.

Meanwhile, according to CNNMoney.com, the trade deficit fell for July 2010. The deficit for July, the latest available month, still stood at a staggering $42.8 billion – down from $49.8 billion in June. It is a good thing that our economy lost less money in July than it did in June, but the U.S. still hemorrhaged tens of billions of dollars that we will never get back.

These marginal gains are enough to send financial markets up or down, but the overall trend has remained the same. America is still losing too many jobs and too much money during every recording period. We cannot recover until those metrics are reversed.

In other news, according to Reuters, both the Senate and the House of Representatives may attempt to create legislation aimed at getting China to lessen its stranglehold of international currency exchange.

The plan is not to get China to accept parity, but rather to get Beijing to let a small amount of slack into the yuan-renminbi. At this point the United States has very little economic leverage on China to push for such currency reforms. Gaining ground in one area, currency, will likely mean giving up something else in return.

Furthermore, even if Congress was able to pass reforms, the President still has to sign off on the legislation for it to have any effect. At this point the Obama administration has been completely unwilling to go against the Chinese, and that is unlikely to change.

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