Nasdaq 100 futures off the boil ahead of US data releases this afternoon

As covered here earlier there are a few pretty important US economic data releases due out later today. At 2pm GMT we get the JOLTS and nationwide US consumer confidence index. US consumer confidence index was at 92.9 in February, it is expected to fall back to around 88 in March. What actually might be more interesting would be the reading for April, when eventually that shows up. Irrespective of that, the markets will not be surprised to see the US consumer much less ebullient last month, given all that has transpired. In terms of hard data, the JOLTS- job openings numbers might be more important today. They were last at 7.568 million in February. The number of vacancies is expected to fall to around 7.5 million in March. Ahead of that, at 12.30pm GMT we get the March trade balance. That is expected to show a deficit of $145 billion. Bad as that might seem, we should remember the US trade deficit stood at a whopping $147.8 billion in February. Earlier this morning the Nasdaq 100 was pricing the opening as high as 19,525. It is now pricing it close to 19,450. The index actually closed just 5 points lower yesterday, at 19,427.