Premarket, futures are up with the Dow showing an implied open of +30. There are no Dow stocks at 52 week highs, or lows. The Dow closed down yesterday at 13,784.17.

The Market

U.S. stocks were down sharply Monday on concerns about Italy, with the Dow and S&P 500 logging their biggest one-day declines of the year.

The S&P Case-Shiller home price index data through December 2012, released today by S&P Dow Jones Indices showed that all three headline composites ended the year with strong gains. The national composite posted an increase of 7.3% for 2012. The 10- and 20-City Composites reported annual returns of 5.9% and 6.8% in 2012. Monthover-month, both the 10- and 20-City Composites moved into positive territory with gains of 0.2%; more than reversing last month’s losses. In addition to the three composites, nineteen of the 20 MSAs posted positive year-over-year growth with only
New York falling.

Home Depot (HD) reported earnings this morning and looks to open up +2.5%. The company also reported a 7% gain in same-store sales for the fourth quarter, compared to the year-earlier period.

European markets are down today.

Asian markets all closed down.

The national average price of gasoline is up a half-cent to $3.782 per gallon.

Earnings Reports

Home Depot 4Q results beat Wall Street’s view, approves a $17 billion buyback and raises it’s dividend 34 percent.

For the quarter that ended Feb. 3, Home Depot Inc. earned $1.02 billion, or 68 cents per share versus $774 million, or 50 cents per share, a year ago. Analysts had expected 64 cents per share. The company also said that the extra week in the current quarter increased its earnings by about 7 cents per share. Revenue was up 14 percent to $18.25 billion from $16.01 billion, beating Wall Street’s estimate for $17.72 billion. That extra week added approximately $1.2 billion to the current quarter’s revenue.

Financial Calendar

0900 ET Dec Case-Shiller Composite-20 expected +0.6% m/m and +6.6% y/y, Nov +0.63% m/m and +5.52% y/y. Q4 Case-Shiller HPI expected +7.0%, Q3 +3.64% y/y.

0900 ET Dec FHFA home price index expected +0.6% m/m, Nov +0.6% m/m.

1000 ET Feb Richmond Fed manufacturing index expected +8.0 to -3.0, Jan -17.0 to -12.0.

1000 ET Feb U.S. consumer confidence (Conference Board) expected +3.4 to 62.0, Jan -8.1 to 58.6.

1000 ET Jan U.S. new home sales expected +3.0% to 380,000, Dec -7.3% to 369,000.

1000 ET Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke delivers semi-annual testimony on monetary policy to Senate Banking Committee.

1300 ET Treasury auction of $35 billion in 5-year T-notes.

1630 ET API weekly U.S. oil statistics.