Free Republic

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Stocks continued losing ground Friday, despite an onslaught of more or less promising economic figures, as eurozone concerns continued to linger ----snipet> In Europe, the euro dwindled to its lowest point since 2008, in part, on an overseas news report saying French President Nicolas Sarkozy had threatened to pull the country out of the euro. That report was later denied by Sarkozy's aides. -----snipet> The Commerce Department said retail sales rose 0.4% in April from March growth of 2.1%. The increase was better than the 0.2% uptick that the market had been expecting, according to consensus...

Nasdaq Operations said it will cancel all trades executed between 2:40 p.m. to 3 p.m. showing a rise or fall of more than 60 percent from the last trade in that security at 2:40 p.m or immediately prior. Nasdaq said the stocks affected and break points will be disseminated soon.

The Labor Department says employers slashed jobs by 63,000 in February, the most since March 2003. The unemployment rate dipped to 4.8 percent as people leave the labor force. Confidence in the economy dropped to a new low as worries about a possible recession, persistent problems in the housing and credit markets and lofty energy prices put people in a more gloomy mind-set.