Feb

27

Stock Market - Pre Open Report for February 27th 2008

By Chuck

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The big even in the overnight hours was the continued decline of the US Dollar. At 4:07am (US EST) the US Dollar hit a new low of $74.22. Since that time corporate events have continued to deteriorate the pre market futures. The biggest is the earnings from Fannie Mae (FNM) released a short time ago (see Lisa’s post earlier). Also we have bad news on the biotechnology front with Amgen (AMGN) and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) having received data that one of their prize drugs used to treat anemia may be increasing the risk of blood clots and even death.

This morning we received the Durable Goods Orders data (Durable goods are industrial products with an expected life of one year or more. They include intermediate goods, such as steel, lumber and electronic components; finished industrial machinery and equipment; and finished consumer durable goods, such as furniture, autos and TVs.). The data this morning showed a decline of 5.3% for January. We have been watching this data over the past year and we identified the down ward trend long ago, this new data adds to the trend down ward (chart will be in tonight’s commentary).

At 10:00am we will also get the Mass Layoffs data, this data, which is usually not talked about much in the media is tracked by us as it provides an early look into the unemployment rate.

And Ben Bernanke will be talking today as well… grab some coffee and a bag of pop corn for the show.