The Market On Wednesday

I actually stepped on a yellow jacket on Monday. I only had socks on, the bee wasp was on my kitchen floor. The bugger got me right on my little toe, it feels like I stubbed my toe on an oil tanker.

We see that the first reported death from swine flu occurred in Texas. The victim was a child. I suspect dehydration was the cause. This is the problem with children, not enough body fluids to handle the severe loss from vomiting and diarrhea. The family must be heartbroken.

The media is attempting to downplay the fear right now by pointing out that the regular flu kills thousands of Americans each year. This is probably true but still this is an extra flu, an extra disease.

The economy is taking a back seat to the swine flu scare. On Wall Street, futures are up, actually strongly up. The idea here is that the leaked data on the GDP will show the economy "only" shrunk at a rate of 4.9% which is better than the 6.4% from the last quarter of '08. Its another case of finding good news in the bad, the GDP is shrinking but its shrinking less, this is allegedly good news.

Reuters: Futures nearly 1 pct higher as GDP data awaited

The release of advance first-quarter GDP data may indicate the slowdown was less brutal than initially thought. The economy is expected to have shrunk at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.9 percent in the first quarter, after contracting 6.3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008.