Equities Flat Ahead of Housing Data, Bernanke

Equity futures are flat to slightly lower this morning after shares in the S&P 500 jumped 1.06% yesterday. Today markets will received fresh data for the housing market and look for headlines coming from Ben Bernanke and Co. speaking at day three of the Boston Fed’s conference in Cape Cod.

The US dollar is slightly firmer this morning, December oil futures are up 10 cents to $81.29 a barrel, and spot gold futures are up slightly at $1,062.10 per ounce.

Aside from data investors will also be looking at earnings statements. The key release today is from Microsoft; the software maker recently launched Windows 7, opened its first retail stores a la Apple, and revised its online PC store. 

In yesterday’s earnings the main event was from Amazon, who posted a 69% leap in Q3 profits led by sales of Kindle, the dominant e-reader on the market. Net income from the online store rose to $199 million, or 45 cents per share, well above expected earnings per share of just 33 cents.

Key Events Today:

8:30 â€