The modest gains of this week were erased- and then some- by Friday’s loss. The Dow ended the week down .98%, the S&P -1.2%, and the Nasdaq -.79%. A good jobs report Thursday and stellar earnings from Intel were evidently not enough to bolster confidence. Google’s earnings late Thursday failed to meet bottom-line estimates, while a few financials saw weaker earnings.

Despite the bad news in a few areas, we still feel the recovery is underway. A majority of the leading economic indicators have turned up toward non-recessionary levels. We remain confident in our economy’s growth.

Next week we’ll see more earnings pour in. Hopefully, a majority of good reports will turn this market around.

This week’s factoid: The fact that the Richter scale for earthquakes is logarithmic means that today’s 3.6 magnitude earthquake was more than ten thousand times less powerful than the February 27 earthquake that shook Chile and prompted tsunami warnings.