The Market On Friday

Everybody knows what to expect today.

The news on unemployment for December will be stunningly bad.

As a result, futures are down. Obama has been trying to buoy the market with intermittent speeches on how he will heal our "Great Recession."

So the days drama and tension is clear. Will the bailout and stimulus talk keep the market from tanking, will investors feel optimistic enough about the future to jump in and buy more cheap but sturdy stocks, or will the ever increasing bad news topple down like a great avalanche.

We had one real stinker day this week on Wednesday. Futures were down on Thursday but Obama buoyed the market which eventually rallied and closed close to even. Its become difficult to read this thing, but the tendency is still to predict losses rather than gains. Investors are testing the waters with the DOW in the high 8000s and very low 9000 area. Can this hold until there really are signs of a correction. The other tendency here is to think, hell no. I would not be surprised to see a 300+ point drop today.

Reuters: Stock futures point to losses ahead of payrolls

The United States is expected to have shed 550,000 jobs in December, making it the worst single month of job losses in 34 years, while the unemployment rate is expected to rise to a 15-year high of 7.0 percent. If economists' forecasts for December prove correct, 2008 will be the biggest year of payroll losses since 1945.