25 August 2011 at 7:03 GMT
Equities futures were mostly flat overnight as anticipation shifts more and more towards tomorrow's speech by Fed Chairman Bernanke. Add to this that today's calendar does not contain many market-movers and the case for range trading in equities ahead of the Jackson Hole speech seems a done deal. Gold, meanwhile, continues to decline and is now down 6 percent for the week and 9 percent since Tuesday's peak of 1,913.50.
U.S. Initial Jobless Claims to steady above 400k? The recent improvements in Initial Jobless Claims (the 4-week MA is down to 402,500 from a peak of 440,300 in mid-May) have been welcome in a time when plenty of indicators suggest a deteriorating economy, but Claims still struggle to break consistently below 400,000 pointing to continued growth in Nonfarm Payrolls of 50-100,000, but not enough to make a profound dent in the Unemployment Rate, which currently stands at 9.1.
Note: Apple CEO Jobs resigns: while we could well be in for a quiet day in equities Apple's shares may see quite a bit of action after news broke that Steve Jobs has resigned from his position of CEO. Tim Cook will be his replacement while Jobs will remain as chairman. Apple briefly had the biggest market capitalisation in the world earlier this month exceeding Exxon.