Last week, we had some depressingly bad results for first time jobless claims - 425,000 were anticipated, and we actually had 436,000. Well, it's new jobless claims day again, and the Street is going for optimism. The consensus is that for the week ending 12/4, we will only see 425,000 new claims.
While we wait for the results, let's check the news.
Futures are up, partly on optimism about the jobless claims expectations and partly on general excitement that 2010 is almost over. No, that doesn't (just) mean that traders are looking to the future and wishing away the last few months of lackluster performance. No, it's also driven by the fact that with only 16 trading days left in the year, underperforming fund managers will be under pressure to snap up stocks with solid fundamentals and good performance. When (if) this happens, the sudden spike in demand will lift market prices.
Debate on the Bush income tax "compromise" deal should hit the Senate by Friday. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid thinks it's pretty much a done deal, and Republicans believe that the Democrats should "...get together and look at the overall bill and realize this is the presentation on the table." In preliminary statements, the rank and file Democrats do not seem impressed. If it passes, look for the equity markets to have a little party (yay! lower taxes!) and the bond markets to sell off more Treasuries (aiee! increasing Federal debt!).
Looking to Europe, the Bank of England (in a move that surprised no one) voted to keep in place the 0.5% interest rate and 200 billion pounds of quantitative easing they've had in place since February. The response from the European markets was to shrug, watch Fitch Rating downgrade Ireland's sovereign debt (BBB+, down from A+), and then go ahead and hit a 26-month high on optimism about the US economy.
China and North Korea reached a consensus on North Korea Crazy's Yeongpyeong Island Tour. What was that consensus? That they "agree on the need to resolve the situation." The world can now breathe a sigh of relief.
Now, back to the first time jobless claims results. On the up side, the week ending 12/4 saw only 421,000 new claims - better than expected and better than the previous week. On the down side, the prior week figures were revised upwards to 438,000 new claims - which is not so good.
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