Morning Market Report

Jobless claims for the week just got released and they were better than expected. New jobless claims fell to 531,000. That's the third week in a row that the number has dropped. The four week average is the lowest since January. This certainly points to relatively good jobs numbers that will come out for the month of September a week from tomorrow.

Futures, not surprisingly, have responded rather favorably. All three indices are up between a half and three quarters of a percent. After losing about 1% yesterday, they are only making up some of what they lost yesterday. Most of those losses came in the last hour and half. Initially, the markets responded favorably to the FOMC minutes. Yet, they then turned suddenly and one percent gains turned into losses of about one percent.

Meanwhile, the good economic news has been shrugged off by bonds. The ten year U.S. Treasury bond is relatively unchanged. It's slightly worse at 3.42%. The yield spread between the two and ten year Treasury bond is also relatively unchanged at 2.45%. Oil is now down below $70 a barrel and currently trading at $68.49 a barrel.

Things were near mirror images of each other in the Far East and Europe. In the Far East, all but two major indices were down and that was the opposite of Europe. The Hang Seng in China was down 2.52%, the NIKKEI in Japan was up 1.67% and the Straits Time Index in Singapore was down .69%. The broader Chinese index was up .38% and all other major indices were down.

In Europe, the FTSE in London was up .31%, the DAX in Germany was up .4%, and the Spanish index was up .28%. The Swedish index and STOXX were the two down European indices and all other major European indices was up.

The Dollar looks to have a mixed opening. It's down .33% against the Euro, up .97% against the British Pound, and down .76% against the Japanese Yen.

The Congress passed an unemployment benefit extension for another 13 weeks.