The market moving news this morning is from three events.
First we have political turmoil in Pakistan with the assignation of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
And on the economic front we had two bits of data which were not good for the economic outlook, weekly jobless claims have gone up again with the weekly numbers being 349K and the continuing claims also rising to 2.713 Million. The weekly jobless claims when viewed over the longer term has an upward trend showing an increase in unemployment is building.
Durable goods orders for November came in as a surprise lower than expected. When transportation is excluded (core data) the data is negative 0.7% vs an expected positive 0.5%. And the prior months data was revised down ward as well. The core data for October was revised to negative 0.9%.
We’re looking at some increased volatility today and at the moment we will be opening lower.
