by Calculated Risk on 2/09/2014 08:41:00 PM

From Joe Weisenthal at Business Inside: Janet Yellen Will Be In The Spotlight This Week

Starting Tuesday, new Fed Chief Janet Yellen gives her first semiannual Humphrey-Hawkins testimony.

Morgan Stanley's Vincent Reinhart writes:

Fed Chair Janet Yellen gives her first semiannual testimony on monetary policy on Tuesday, February 11. With two weak payroll prints in a row, she will feel no need to defend policy accommodation. ... With considerable confusion about the role of weather on the last two employment reports and two more to come before the next FOMC meeting, a modest show of empathy should be sufficient. Traditionally, these events are the peaks in the landscape of Fed communication.

The next FOMC meeting is March 18th and 19th (followed by Dr. Yellen's first press conference as Fed Chair).  So there is just the February employment report in early March (one report, not two) between now and then.

Note: Personally I think the after meeting press conferences are more effective Fed communication than the testimony to Congress (the press mostly asks better questions, whereas the questions from Congress are mostly political posturing).

Weekend:
• Schedule for Week of Feb 9th

From MarketWatch: Asia Markets live blog: Stocks rolling higher

Tokyo equities are starting the week in the plus column, leading the Nikkei Average up 1.2% at 14,642.

From CNBC: Pre-Market Data and Bloomberg futures: the S&P futures and DOW futures are unchanged (fair value).

Oil prices are up with WTI futures at $100.24 per barrel and Brent at $109.72 per barrel.

Below is a graph from Gasbuddy.com for nationwide gasoline prices. Nationally prices are around $3.28 per gallon (moving up, but down significantly from the same week a year ago).  If you click on "show crude oil prices", the graph displays oil prices for WTI, not Brent; gasoline prices in most of the U.S. are impacted more by Brent prices.

Orange County Historical Gas Price Charts Provided by GasBuddy.com