Markets

-Stock index futures edged higher on Wednesday as leaders in Greece again attempted to reach a deal on reforms in exchange for a new bailout.

-The euro zone rescue fund anticipates it will play a significant role in steps to set Greece's debt back on a sustainable path and provide more bailout funding, the fund's deputy CEO Christophe Frankel said on Wednesday.

-It was just last summer that the Dow Jones industrial average shed 2,000 points in three terrifying weeks. Investors had a host of things to worry about, including the possibility of another recession. Now the Dow is within reach of the rarefied 13,000 mark — a level it hasn't seen since May 2008, four months before the financial system almost came apart.

-Applications for home mortgages jumped last week, fueled by increased demand for refinancing as interest rates fell, an industry group said on Wednesday. The Mortgage Bankers Association said its seasonally adjusted index of mortgage application activity, which

There were plenty of objectionable ads during the Super Bowl — the absurdly sexist GoDaddy.com spots, Adriana Lima's come-hither pitch for Teleflora, Coca-Cola's lame polar bears. So it's surprising that the biggest controversy has been generated by Clint Eastwood's spot for Chrysler. The ad, "It's Half-Time in America," told a story of how a country and a city that have both suffered adversity and some tough knocks can nonetheless return to prominence and usefulness through hard work and ingenuity. Of course, the ad was a metaphor for Chrysler, which filed for bankruptcy in 2009, received a government bailout and has been revived under the ownership of Fiat.

Some Republican operatives cried foul. Karl Rove complained that "The President of the United States' political minions are, in essence, using our tax dollars to buy corporate advertising and the best wishes of the management, which has benefited by getting a bunch of our money that they'll never pay back."

Huh?

Let's review the

(Updated with U.S. market open)

What to watch, courtesy of Yahoo! Finance's Elizabeth Trotta:

Good morning -- U.S. stocks are edging lower as Greece struggles to handle euro zone finance ministers' demands for swift cuts and a national strike against austerity measures. Oil is near a six-week low in New York on bets that fuel demand will suffer as the euro debt crisis continues and as stockpiles build in the U.S.

The race for the Republican presidential candidate will turn the focus to caucuses in Colorado and Minnesota (and less so to a non-binding primary in Missouri) on Tuesday after Mitt Romney secured Nevada over the weekend. Romney's campaign turned its attention away from battling Newt Gingrich to focus on former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, who won Iowa's party caucuses.

Romney's finances have remained a topic for debate. The largest U.S. private-equity funds and venture capital firms continue to shell out large sums to protect the carried interest tax break that helped

More than three years after it took a hard fall, there are signs that America's industrial economy is getting back on its feet and regaining a bit of its lost swagger. New orders at factories rose smartly in December, and were up 12.1 percent in 2011 from 2010 (see Table 2). Last Friday's employment report showed that the manufacturing sector added 50,000 jobs in January, and has added 235,000 positions in the past 12 months.

Check out the news flow coming out of the auto industry. In January, U.S. auto sales blew past expectations, rising 11 percent from January 2011 and checking in at an annualized rate not seen since August 2009, when the Cash for Clunkers goosed demand. One of the most talked-about advertisements on Sunday night's Super Bowl broadcast was Chrysler's "Halftime in America" ad, which featured Clint Eastwood. On Monday morning, the Wall Street Journal led with a front —page article asserting that General Motors, still a partial ward of the state, could earn a $10

What to watch, courtesy of Yahoo! Finance's Elizabeth Trotta:

Good morning,

U.S. futures are following world stocks lower after Greece missed a deadline to meet terms for a new 130 billion euro ($170 billion) bailout, increasing the risk of default.

In the U.S., the race for the Republican presidential candidate will move to caucuses in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri on Tuesday after Mitt Romney secured Nevada over the weekend.

Meanwhile, in Washington DC, a developing Senate plan that would allow the government to selectively regulate the computer security of companies that run critical industries has pitted businesses against security experts, as the former feels the government would be going too far and the latter, not far enough. [Bigger U.S. Role Against Companies Cyberthreats?]

Outside of politics, the Super Bowl is over, but the critiques, and in some cases battles, over the ads are just beginning. You might have noticed the General Motors ad with Chevy drivers who had

No banks failed this week.

The U.S. economy is highly procyclical. Failure tends to beget failure, and success tends to beget success. Just as a deep recession leads to bankruptcies, job losses, mortgage delinquencies, and failed loans, sustained growth leads to job gains and rising credit trends. That trend can certainly be seen in the bank failure data. As customers do a better job staying current on loans, banks do a better job staying alive.

Every Friday, the FDIC seizes failed banks. So its weekly Failure Friday reports offer one reading on the health of the credit economy. (Here's the complete failed bank list.) On Friday, February 2, no banks failed. Through the first five weeks of 2012, the FDIC shut down 7 banks with a combined $2.58 billion in assets. That's more than in a typical year. But compared with 2011, the pace and size of bank failures is way down. IU the first five weeks of 2011, fourteen banks with a combined $7.6 billion in assets failed.

Daniel Gross is economics

For the first time in several years, we have an unambiguously positive employment report. The U.S. economy added 243,000 payroll jobs in January 2012 and the unemployment rate fell to 8.3 percent. One month does not a trend make, but the past several months of data show a labor market that is recovering, and an economy that has been accelerating even as fears of a double-dip recession rose. The main complaint about the report, which isn't really a complaint, is that we need several more months like this to recover all the ground lost in 2008 and 2009.

For those of us who believe the U.S. economy is performing better, stronger and faster than its peers in the developed world, and than many pessimists expect, this is something of a vindication.

Let's look inside the data.

Positive payroll number. The economy created 243,000 jobs. There was no great post-Christmas season let-down in hiring, as many analysts expected. Strength was across the board. Manufacturing added 50,000 positions. Health care and education added decent chunks of jobs, per usual, but professional services added 70,000 and retail added 10,000 jobs. Average weekly earnings rose a bit, and were up 2.5 percent from January 2011.

What to watch, courtesy of Yahoo! Finance's Elizabeth Trotta:

Futures were slightly higher and oil was near a six week low ahead of the most anticipated economic data of the month, the government's jobs report for January. Economists are expecting the U.S. added 155,000 new jobs, which would mark deceleration in growth after the economy added 200,000 jobs in December. The unemployment rate is expected to have held steady at 8.5%. Data on factory orders and the ISM Services Index are expected at 10 a.m. ET. (See below for economic data to watch next week)

What and how much the Fed can do to help the economy while also looking after the Federal budget continues to be debated after Fed Chief Bernanke's testimony yesterday. [See Budget Committee Lawmakers Question Fed's Dual Mandate and Bernanke Won't Tolerate Inflation to Boost Jobs]

What else is happening?

The New York Times reports that the SEC may have stepped up its Wall Street investigations, but the agency appears to be going easy