Our markets are in for yet another volatile day and currently futures are down significantly. In the overnight hours futures recovered somewhat but this mornings data on unemployment have sent recession fears to fever pitch once again.

The weekly jobless claims have risen significantly…

INITIAL JOBLESS CLAIMS: 375K V 319KE; CONTINUING CLAIMS: 2.716M V 2.685ME
- Prior Jobless Claims revised from 301K to 306K
- Prior Continuing Claims revised from 2.672M to 2.669M

Key numbers there is the continuing claims continues to rise. And the weekly jump continues to raise the moving average as unemployment is showing signs of getting worse. This data had a significant impact on the futures this morning.

Additionally, personal income is NOT keeping pace with inflation and personal spending remains very weak.

MBIA (MBI) will hold their conference call this morning at 11am. However, they are not going to take any live calls for questions. They will respond to email questions only and the questions will be pre screened. This is highly unusual. MBIA is a public company, and for them to handle their conference call in this manner is concerning. The bond insurer issue is a serious problem and we can’t stress enough how bad the problems are with these companies.