On Thursday the economic news was dismal.  First the Durable Goods Orders fell by 5.2%. Even taking out transport it was still down 2.5%.  This is a big drop.  Transport includes Boeing and plane orders are being cancelled or delayed, so Boeing is slowing down production.

Next was Initial Claims for unemployment, a new 26 year high at 667,000 FOR THE WEEK. Yikes! The market was expecting 625K which was bad enough in itself. 

Finally came the New Home Sales at a low 309K.  The market was expecting 320-325K. This was the lowest level in 10 years.  Sales were down 48.2% compared to a year earlier. The housing market still has a way to go to recover.

So why was the market up in the begining of the last trading day?  Perhaps it was the announcement of the Federal Budget by President Obama. It only had a deficit of $1.75 Trillion, or 1,750 Billion. Only???

Then reality set in amd the market started to drop to end the day with the S&P down 9.5 points.  Now the S&P is back within 7 points of the low it reached on Monday. Today is Friday and the last trading day for the month and I would expect to see an effort to claw back some of the losses, currently down 17.5 points for the week before the start of trading for Friday.