Retail Sales, Jobless Claims in Focus Today

The drama of the stimulus is likely behind us and the theater of the big bank chief executives on Capitol Hill is over, too. Today, we turn our attention to more mundane events, such as earnings and economic data.

This morning at 8:30 a.m., the government releases information about weekly jobless claims and retail sales in January and how they fared compared to the prior month. Neither numbers are supposed to be pretty. And later on this morning, the government will release information about business inventories. We'll also check out earnings from several firms, including Marriott, a hometown company. We'll cover all of these, as well as the market's opening, right here.

--Sara Goo