Thursday: Unemployment Claims

From the WSJ: After Foreclosures, Home Buyers Are Back

... For those who lost their homes in the early years of the crisis, credit scores are improving as the black marks drop away, improving their ability to borrow again. This could have widespread implications for the U.S. economy, including a boost in demand for mortgages in the coming years.

Fair Isaac Corp. ... estimates that there were 910,000 consumers whose credit reports showed they had foreclosure proceedings begin on their homes between October 2007 and October 2008. Of those, some 264,400 had no evidence of the event on their credit reports by last October. That number will rise by up to 645,600 by the end of this year, according to FICO.

“The dark shadow of the foreclosure crisis is finally beginning to fade,” says Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, a unit of Moody’s Corp. “That should be a positive for single-family housing and, by extension, for the broader economy.”

Thursday:
• At 8:30 AM ET, the initial weekly unemployment claims report will be released. The consensus is for claims to increase to 285 thousand from 268 thousand.

• At 10:00 AM, Monthly Wholesale Trade: Sales and Inventories for February. The consensus is for a 0.2% increase in inventories.