Thursday's trading radar

Asian Markets & Equity Futures
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We are well into Asian trading and early optimism has faded as most indices are paring gains or showing outright losses. U.S. equity futures have been positive for most of the evening, but are also paring gains and currently showing slight gains.

U.S. Afternoon Recap
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The major late-day reversal (unsustainable) in U.S. trade yesterday was likely aided by two major headlines.
1) Bernanke's testimony that effectively ruled out total nationalization. Nationalization wipes out common shareholders and the government takes over operations. That is not happening so please let's move on. So the banks, top 19 ($100B in asset or greater), will undergo "stress-testing" to identify which institutions need more capital. What I really like is the subsequent opportunity to raise the necessary capital privately, in a 6-month window

2) Bernanke's talk about resurrecting the uptick rule which prohibits short-selling unless we see a positive tick. Never been a fan of this, but it likely would help the bulls.


Thursday's Economic View
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Deja vu economic data? On the radar we have:

8:30am
January Durable Goods Orders (Ex-transportation) - Exp. -2.1% would only be the millionth month in a row of declines.

8:30am
Weekly Jobless Claims - Exp. 625k, I don't see this stabilizing anytime soon. Continuing claims to top 5mm

10:00am
January New Home Sales - Exp. 330k annual sales pace. This metric keeps surprising to the negative, no relief in sight for falling home prices and thus no incentive to build. Builders are folding pocket Jacks pre-flop.

Ever heard of the aggregate demand multiplier? This is when people get jobs and buy homes and then purchase appliances and furniture. Then these businesses hire and invest and the cycle repeats to an extent. Okay just checking - Lets work on this.

Not looking good for the open - Asian markets turning sour and U.S. futures have followed suit. Did I mention anything about follow through?


12:40am
Like the bears, I don't trust this timestamp