The Day Ahead: Markets Await Jobless Claims and Home Sales

By: • Thu, Mar 4 2010, 8:19 AM

The futures market is pretty quiet this morning as investors await the jobless claims report today and the month’s unemployment report tomorrow. Also on deck today are revisions to the fourth quarter’s productivity and costs report, and the first look of the year at pending home sales.

In Europe, Greece hit the market a well-bid sale of 10-year bonds.

“The bonds are being offered with a premium yield of a little under 6.5%, while the 10-yr is trading closer to 6% currently,” analysts from BMO said. “The ability to sell debt and accept that a premium must be paid are steps forward for Greece. A large amount of debt will still need to be issued over the next three months, but progress is a positive for Europe and global markets.”

Ninety minutes before the opening bell, Dow futures are up 8 points to 10,395 while S&P 500 futures are slightly off, down 0.40 points to 1,118.20.

Commodities are also mixed. WTI crude oil is flat at $80.84 per barrel and Spot Gold is up $6.60 per ounce to $1,144.00.

Key Events Today:

8:30 ― Initial Jobless Claims continue to befuddle economists. Last week the index jumped 22k to a four-month high of 496,000. In this week’s survey the consensus is 475k, but that’s little more than a rehash of the four-week average.

“These figures have behaved bizarrely in recent weeks, with claims dropping sharply in the first week of February and then rebounding mid-month,” said economists at Nomura. “We suspect this reflects seasonal adjustment distortions, as the unadjusted level of claims has gradually declined over the past three weeks. However, even looking past these distortions, the current level of claims is not consistent with private-sector employment growth, in our view.”

8:30 ― Productivity soared by 6.3% in the fourth-quarter while Costs were slashed by 4.5%. In the revised estimates the story is expected to be the same, only more so. Productivity is set to be 6.4% and costs should be cut 4.5%. The estimates are based largely on the the GDP revisions from late February.

“The fourth quarter boost in productivity reflected a 7.2% surge in output, following a 2.2% gain the prior quarter,” economists at IHS Global Insight said. “Hours worked actually rebounded a modest 1.0% after a 4.7% annualized drop in the third quarter. Looking ahead, the upcoming revision to fourth quarter numbers should nudge productivity a little higher and bump unit costs down based on the 0.2 percentage point upward revision to fourth quarter GDP (to 5.9% annualized growth).”

10:00 ― Pending Home Sales Index plunged 16.4% in November but then rose 1% to end the year. In the first months of January sales are expected to continue modestly, while the extension of the first-time homeowner tax credit could provide some additional boost.

1:00 ― Charles Evans, president of the Chicago Fed, speaks to the CFA Society of Chicago.