Another Round of Bad US Economic Data; Greece Backed up?

S&P 500 Index futures are up 0.2 percent indicating a higher open as risk continues its now three-day long relief rally.

The amount of bad economic data continues to pile up with today's worse than expected job and manufacturing data. U.S. initial jobless claims came in higher than expected at 428K compared to 411K estimated signalling that the world's largest economy is still not generating enough jobs on a net basis. Empire manufacturing data for September came out at -8.82, worse than the -4.00 expected, signalling that manufacturing in the New York region is contracting faster than initially expected. The pre-market data hit risk, taking stock futures down a bit.

Later investors will get the important U.S. industrial production for August which is expected (13:15 GMT) to show that industrial production was unchanged last month. Based on the recent downward revisions do not be surprised if industrial production from July is also revised down from the 0.9 percent MoM reading. Finally, investors will get the Philly Fed Business Outlook for September expected (14:00 GMT) to come out at -15.0 compared to -30.7 in August.

Germany and France behind Greece; UBS trader loses USD 2 billion on unauthorised trading
In Europe, the Euro STOXX 50 Index is up 2.5 percent and EURUSD is strengthening as official assurances from Germany and France that Greece will stay in the Euro is somewhat fuelling investor confidence. Also adding some positive flavour to stocks is the Italian Parliament's final approval of the EUR 54 billion austerity package that is put in place to fight contagion risk from Greece's bond market and secure balanced budgets in 2013.

Early this morning a new trading scandal surfaced with the arrest of a UBS trader in London due to around USD 2 billion losses on unauthorised trades, which according to rumours were presumably revealed as the trader was trying to exit naked short positions in an ETF silver instrument. The trading losses may cause UBS to announce a third quarter loss and as a result the bank's shares are down 8.6 percent in Swiss trading.