The Market On Wednesday

Good morning and welcome to Leap Day, February 29th. It is 30 degrees and hazy here in Upstate NY. We are expecting a snow storm to arrive later today something along the lines of 6 to 10 inches. Considering its been a snow-free winter, this is fine.

At 8:20 a.m. the DOW is modestly higher, the dollar is mostly down against major world currencies, and the price of oil is up. The market is poised to open a little higher.

Investors are very pleased to see that the European Central Bank will be making funds available to European Banks. This is thought to be an assist to the ongoing eurozone crisis.

One of the bigger pieces of data today will be a second reading of the fourth quarter GDP. In addition new words from Bernanke will be parsed and the indexes will respond in kind.

CNN: Stocks to open higher on Europe hopes

...the European Central Bank said that it well lend €529.5 billion, or $721.4 billion, to European banks, a move aimed at preventing a credit crunch.


...the government's second estimate of fourth-quarter GDP growth.


...a report on the global oil market...