David Fry's  Instablog

European stocks were lower on the day on more worries about...wait for it...Greece. Seems S&P thinks they need another debt restructuring. Shocked?! I thought not. This action spilled over to U.S. stocks, which started the day down despite fairly benign economic data.

Jobless Claims were heralded as beating the previous week's report. But, naturally a close look revealed revisions to the previous report increased claims by 5% or 17K claims. Even though the current data (359K) missed estimates (350K) the prior report was revised from 348K claims to 365K. Headline writers could then state claims improved. Got that? These revisions to prior claims have been consistently higher over the past 20 weeks. Elsewhere GDP data came in at 3% which matched previous data and estimates so no big deal there. Most forecasters believe economic growth will decline in the next quarter.

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