Morning Market Report

The weekly jobless claims just came out and they hit another recent multi month low. This week the number of new jobless claims came in at 545,000. Last week it was 550,000 and so a trend might be forming. It also bodes well for the monthly jobs number that will come out the first Friday in October.

Markets had a great day yesterday. All were up in the neighborhood of 1%. That followed near across the board gains around both Europe and the Far East. This morning, however, markets look to open rather flat. The futures of all three indices are trading very near yesterday's close, within a quarter of a percent.

Treasury bonds are gaining back some of what they lost yesterday. The ten year is now trading at 3.46% after reaching 3.48% yesterday. The yield spread between the two and ten year is now at 2.47%. That's on the low end over the last few months but within a fairly narrow range.

Oil is down slightly this morning but continues an upward trend. It's currently trading at $71.98 a barrel. That's down about fifty cents a barrel from the close yesterday. Still there is an upward trend that continues for more than a week.

Currently, currencies are having a relatively quiet day. The dollar is up .1% against the Euro, it's down .04% against the British Pound and it's up .4% against the Japanese Yen.

Markets around the world were generally up though not across the board. In the Far East, the Hang Seng in China was up 1.71%, the NIKKEI in Japan was up 1.68%, and the Straits Time Index in Singapore was down .07%. In Europe, the FTSE in London was up .31%, the DAX in Germany was up .1%, and the Spanish index was down .27%.

Finally, Fedex came out with earnings this morning. They were in line with expectations however the company warned on the outlook going forward. It's down about 1% in the pre market.