Today: Budget, Economic Data, New Home Sales

You heard it previewed by President Obama on Tuesday night. Now, it's time to pour through the details. The first federal budget released by the Obama administration comes out today, with an ETA of 11 a.m. It will outline some ambitious goals, such as caps on greenhouse gas emissions and a permanent tax cut for the middle class. And unlike the Bush era, the budget is expected to include costs for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But before all that, we expect it to be a busy morning, the markets will be absorbing a lot of new economic and corporate data. First, General Motors is expected to finally announce their most recent quarterly results early this morning. We'll get a glimpse at how bad of financial shape the biggest U.S. automaker is in and its outlook for the future, with or without additional government aid.

Next up, at 8:30 a.m., the Labor Department releases weekly jobless figures. Last week, you may recall that the numbers showed that continuing unemployment claims were just a hair under 5 million people. This week, how much closer will we get to meeting that staggering figure? As companies continue to cut staff sharply, the data continues to show that people are staying out of work for longer periods of time.

Also at 8:30 a.m., the Commerce Department is expected to release figures on durable goods sales for the month of January, which will provide a picture of consumer spending that month.

Later this morning, at 10 a.m., we will get yet another chunk of data about the housing market. Yesterday, you may recall that the sales of existing homes fell by more than 5 percent in January, hitting an 11-year low. Today, data on sales of new homes in January is also expected to be dismal, given the lack of construction and buyers.

Stay tuned.

--Sara Goo