Irwan Jo's List: Market Watch

• The U.S. jobless rate dropped 0.2 percentage point to 9.5% in June, the lowest level since July, but the government’s broader measure of unemployment only ticked down 0.1 point to 16.5%.
• The 9.5% unemployment rate is calculated based on people who are without jobs, who are available to work and who have actively sought work in the prior four weeks.
• The rate is calculated by dividing that number by the total number of people in the labor force.
• About 6.8 million people have been out of a job for more than 27 weeks. This month, despite a 190,000 increase in the population, the number of people in the labor force dropped by 652,000.

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• The data show that during the worst of the recession consumers spent less at the two coffee outlets, but as the employment picture started to improve people were willing to spend more per transaction.
• But if the average transaction size levels off or continues to decline, it could indicate a more thrifty consumer will dominate the second half of this year.

• “Bank of America Corp. and other banks are preparing new fees on basic banking services as they try to replace revenue lost to regulatory rules, in a push that is expected to spell an end to free checking accounts for many Americans.”

• with the two-year Treasury note's yield setting a record low of 0.51%. The 30-year bond yield dipped to 4.00%.