Russia and Ukraine striking up a cease-fire deal after days of negotiations lifted the major equity indices from yesterday’s lows. The Dow Jones Industrial average is up by the smallest percentage, 0.35%, and the S&P 500 is up 0.64%. The NASDAQ, which managed to close in the green yesterday is up the most by 0.78%. Cyber security stocks, such as FireEye (FEYE) and CyberArk (CYBR) are helping boosts the index.  CYBR is scheduled to release its earnings after the close. Oil prices are also climbing higher, currently benched at the $50-dollar level. However, with natural gas storage falling 160 billion cubic feet in the past week, natural gas futures are moving lower.

There was a lot of domestic economic data released today. Firstly, jobless claims were released this morning for the week ended February 7^th.  Jobless claims rose sharply to 304,000 from an upwardly revised 279,000 (from 278,000) the prior week. This can be linked to multiple layoffs taking place in the oil industry. The street estimated 288,000 initial claims for the week. Despite initial claims rising, the 4-week average actually declined for the third time in a row to approximately 289,750. Continuing claims, which are a week behind, were rather positive. For the last week of January, 2.354 million filed for unemployment, this is 51,000 less than the prior week. The 4-week average decreased by 19,000 to 2.404 million. All in all, this points to a positive employment report for the month of February.

Monthly retail sales came in lower than expected for the month of January. Following the holidays, the street estimated that retail sales would decline 0.5%, in reality, it declined 0.8%. When removing autos and gas, retail sales actually gained 0.2% in the month after a no change in December. With the price of oil edging higher, consumers are seeing gas prices slightly higher on and off at the pumps. This, added to declining jobs in the oil space, is lowering their confidence in the economy. The Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index fell for the second week in a row to 44.3 from 45.5.

Lastly, the Census Bureau released a Business Inventories report this morning. Similar to the Wholesales Inventory report, for the month of December, business inventories rose 0.1% after climbing 0.2% the prior week (also the consensus estimate). The report noted that business focused in retail, autos, and building materials saw the strongest builds relative to sales. The inventory-to-sales ratio increased slightly to 1.33, the heaviest the ratio has been in over 5 years. With sales declining, and inventories rising, we may see businesses slowing their production and cutting back on expenditures to meet demand, which would not bode well for the US economy.

Tomorrow we await the University of Michigan’s preliminary consumer sentiment report and a look at inflation changes through the import and export prices report.