Weekly initial jobless claims declined today to 332,000 from last week's 342,000, well below the 350,000 economist estimate and 4-week average. This is close to the lowest level the weekly claims have been at since 2008 and continue to indicate a long-term sloping downtrend in claims. The producer price index rose to an annual rate of 1.7% from last month's 1.4%, a bit less than the economist expectations.
Domestically, the US dollar was hard hit, but it didn't have a visible effect on any other asset classes. The Treasury reopened $13 billion of 30-year bonds at a yield of 3.243%, weaker than the when-issued yield. However, bonds rallied after the weaker auction and the curve steepened out. Energy was the leading sector of the day; the S&P sub-sector finished 1.18% higher on the day led by higher gains in natural gas (+3.53%) and oil (0.49%).
Overnight, Australia reported employment gains of 71.5K in February, causing the unemployment rate to remain unchanged at 5.4%, better than what had been expected. As a result, the AUDUSD rose 0.76%.
Tonight after the US close,
Samsung (
PINK:SSNLF) will release a new iteration of the Galaxy S smartphone, expected to be in direct competition with
Apple's (
NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhone and
Google's (
NASDAQ:GOOG) Android models.
Tomorrow will be relatively quiet globally, but there will be lots of activity in the US. The market will fret over the monthly consumer price index as it influences the direction of Fed policy. It is expected to increase to an annual rate of 1.8% from last month's 1.6%. The NY manufacturing survey is expected to decline to an expansionary 8.5 from last month's 10.04. Industrial production and capacity utilization are both expected to increase marginally from January's relatively unchanged data. Lastly, the first estimate of March Michigan Consumer Confidence will be released int he morning with little change expected from last month's 77.6.
Globally, the only economic data on the calendar is eurozone CPI. There are no major US earnings data due out.
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