The Market On Thursday

Good morning. During my walk earlier today I encountered the usual suspects walking their dogs. One guy has two beautiful gray Irish Terriers. I think it takes a special person to keep terriers. Our remaining dog, our Dachshund is on his last legs. The poor guy has brain cancer. Really. He still likes food, still does his business and let's us know when he has various needs. We don't give him a lot more time. His balance is poor but he has his moments when he can walk just fine. He's lost weight. Cancer does that. This will be the second dog we've lost to cancer. Our Lab died in '07 from cancer that had spread throughout her body.

At 7:50 a.m. ET, stock futures are moderately down, oil is down, and the dollar is in mixed territory. The day could still recover, it could, really it could.

That will take good news on first time unemployment claims due out at 8:30 a.m., good news on existing home sales, and good news on the unknown, unwritten about factor which tends to be the decider.

Curiously a report of 400,000 or less first time unemployment claimants would be considered a real victory. That must be the number that occurs when the economy is in decent shape.

CNN: Stock set to retreat

The weekly report on initial jobless claims is due out at 8:30 a.m. ET.


Investors will also be watching for a report on existing home sales, which is due to be released at 10 a.m. ET.


At that same time, a report on leading indicators is expected to show the index increasing by 0.1% for August.