Wall Street Greek: Business News: Jobless Claims, Geithner, Leading Indicators, Philly Fed

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Business News

Today's business news drivers are keyed by a bland and still bad enough jobless claims report. We have Leading Indicators and Tim Geithner's testimony on financial regulation yet to come... oh and Philly is represented with its Fed Survey!

Weekly Jobless Claims

Keying the business news day, Weekly Initial Jobless Claims were reported this morning at 8:30. The news was as bad as expected and as of late. Claims of 608K compared against the 610K forecast by economists surveyed by Bloomberg, while matching with the 605K reported last week (revised from 601K). The four-week moving average was down a modest 7,000, to 615,750.

While it seems the worst of the bleeding is behind us, we're still bleeding and that's never good. Over the past few months, we've seen the market come to terms with the idea that trough has been touched and recession's conclusion is before us, however, there remains little sign for a robust economic recovery. The global economic engine takes some time to rev up it seems, but we look forward to momentum once it does. Look for more detail on this data later this morning.

Feds News

Federal government rep, Treasury Secretary Geithner is scheduled to testify before the Senate Banking Committee on the President's plan for regulatory reform. Geithner shared some tough criticism yesterday, and so we're looking for the Secretary to join in the chorus with constituent-conscious Congressmen in bashing the financial world.

The Philly Fed Survey is due at 10:00 a.m. The measure of business activity in the Philadelphia region becomes useful when taken as part of a five course meal, including several other similar reports. Economists forecast Philly's General Business Conditions Index will improve to a still sad -15.0, from -22.6 posted in May. The metric, still indicating economic contraction at that level, would be the best in eight months. The Federal Reserve releases the latest news on the state of its balance sheet at 4:30 p.m. EDT.

Leading Economic Indicators

Leading Indicators are seen rising for the second month in a row, +1.0% this time, matching the April gain. April's rise in LEI was the first in seven months. Stock market gains in May should once again play a big role in the change, as should improved consumer sentiment.

Earnings Reports

Thursday's EPS schedule includes reports from Asure Software (Nasdaq: ASUR), Carnival Corp. (NYSE: CCL), Discover Financial Services (NYSE: DFS), J.M. Smucker Co. (NYSE: SJM), Pier 1 Imports (NYSE: PIR), Progress Software (Nasdaq: PRGS), Research in Motion (Nasdaq: RIMM), Wimm-Bill-Dann Foods (NYSE: WBD) and Winnebago (NYSE: WGO).