Morning Market Report

The Dow was up until the last couple hours yesterday and then it turned. The Dow went from up about fifty points at the time to down 92.12 at the close. There's still plenty of earnings to chew on but the weekly first time unemployment numbers just came out. The current weekly number was up to 531,000 and last week's number was revised to 520,000. That breaks a streak and keeps the number above 500,000. So, once again, the weekly first time claims numbers gives a very unclear picture about the jobs picture. The four week average did get better.

Meanwhile, Ebay, Amgen, and Novartis all had upbeat earnings after the bell yesterday while Ericcson disappointed. At the same time, oil busted out above $80 a barrel mostly on continued weakness of the dollar. Oil closed above $81 a barrel and is now trading at $80.82 a barrel. Treasury bonds are also losing steam. The ten year U.S. Treasury bond is now at 3.42%. That's up four basis points from the close yesterday and it gained about that many basis points yesterday. This is right at the top of the trading range over the last month or so. The ten year treasury should be watched to see if it recovers or breaks through this resistence point. The yield spread is now at 2.46% and that's grown over the last week or so as well. Bonds in both Germany and London were also worse across the board today as well.

Markets around the world are all down. In the Far East, the Hang Seng in China was down .48%, the NIKKEI in Japan was down .64%, and the Straits Time Index in Singapore was down .39%. In Europe, the FTSE in London was down 1.09%, the DAX in Germany was down 1.47%, and the Spanish Index was down .72%.

The Dollar is strengthening this morning after going through a bloody period. The Dollar is up .2% against the Euro, it's up .37% against the British Pound, and it's up .52% against the Japanese Yen.