Market Preview: Speculation Vs. News

Investors will be looking to see if Kroger sticks with its outlook for earnings of $2.28 to $2.38 a share in fiscal 2012 with same-supermarket sales seen growing 3-to-3.5%.

The economic calendar features weekly initial and continuing jobless claims at 8:30 a.m. ET; and the consumer price index for May at 8:30 a.m. ET. The consensus is for initial claims to come in at 375,000, according to Briefing.com, a tick lower from last week.

Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics, is on board with that, and he's hopeful the trend is ready to start moving lower again.

"Over the past four weeks, the changes in unadjusted claims from week to week have been 2K better, on average, than in the same weeks in 2007, when the calendar was last the same as this year," he said. "If the pattern persists, the headline adjusted level of claims will drop to about 360K by the end of this month, notwithstanding seasonal adjustment chaos caused by looming annual shutdowns in the auto manufacturing industry."

--Written by Michael Baron in New York.

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