The Market Rally Is Losing Some Steam

Dow futures are up 34 points after being up as much as 95 points.

S&P 500 futures are up 1.6 points.

Nasdaq futures are up 10 points.

In an encouraging sign for the U.S. labor market, initial weekly unemployment claims fell to 331,000 from 351,000 a week ago.

While we can't completely rule out the possible distortive affects of weather, this week's number was nevertheless lower than the 335,000 expected by economists.

"After last week's unexpected spike, this is something of a relief, though the latest bout of severe weather could easily push claims back up again for a time," said Ian Shepherdson of Pantheon Macroeconomics. "Still, claims have now been at or around the 330K mark in four of the past five weeks, so that seems to be as good an idea of the underlying trend as any. This means claims are no lower now than at the end of last summer, before all the Q4 distortions. But the pace of hiring seems to have improved despite static layoffs, so the trend in payroll growth has nudged higher. We are hopeful that claims will trend lower over the course of H1, generating a further improvement in the job growth numbers."

Elsewhere in the global financial markets, the euro is surging as ECB president Mario Draghi discusses his latest monetary policy decision.

Britain's FTSE 100 is up 0.9%.

France's CAC 40 is up 0.9%.

Germany's DAX is up 0.6%.

Spain's IBEX is up 1.0%.

Italy's FTSE MIB is up 1.0%.