By Carlos Guillen

Equity markets are showing signs of ambivalence as macroeconomic data from earlier this morning helped to lift equities slightly, but comments from the Fed created some encouragement one minute, only to create discouragement minutes later. While the initial claims data continued to show an improving employment backdrop, investors appear to be ready to react more on tomorrow monthly jobs report.

So far the trend in the unemployment rate has been favorable in recent months, with the most recent unemployment rate dropping to a near three-year low of 8.5 percent in December, and at the moment all indications are that this improving trend will continue, although at a slow pace. Of course, there are still risks to the overall economy coming from Europe as well as from a slowing China.

However, on an encouraging note, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has given markets some hope as he said the Fed will do everything it can to prevent any spillover into the domestic economy. Moreover, although Ben Bernanke does acknowledge that huge budget deficits represent a serious threat to the economy, he has urged government leaders to balance their desire to cut deficits as some policies could prevent a boost in the economy in the short term. The good thing is that Bernanke sees cutting deficits and fueling growth as being fully compatible. Of course, one has to take this with a grain of salt as his view is over the long run. It should be noted that the Fed, a week ago, indicated that a full recovery could take at least three more years. As a result, the Fed said it did not plan to raise its benchmark interest rate from a record low before late 2014 at the earliest.

At the moment, it appears that investors are digesting all of Bernanke's comments and are realizing that the overall message was positive. As such, although still in negative territory, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is recovering and about to head back into the green. Tomorrow should be an exciting day as all eyes will be on the government's jobs report.

Facebook Valuation Investigation
David Urani

Congratulations to Facebook, for bursting onto the scene with its IPO filing yesterday. We still don't know when it will make its market debut, but it's sure to be fairly soon. We don't know exactly what its market cap will be yet, but the estimate puts it at between $75 billion and $100 billion. That puts Facebook among some very prestigious company. The thing is, where Facebook's market cap differs from the other blue chips in its valuation range is that Facebook's value anticipates some breakneck acceleration in sales and earnings. Granted, in the seven years it's been around its growth has been simply astounding, but we thought we'd give you a rundown of where they are now and how they compare with some of the other companies in its $75-100 billion value range:

You might have noticed off the bat the high profile of Facebook's peers. Note that I left Anheuser-Busch InBev, Cisco, Unilever, and United Technologies off the list. The first thing one might notice is that Facebook's revenue is well below that of the other companies. Facebook has millions of users, but only recently really began to derive large amounts of revenue from them. However, as you can see, that revenue is up 88% from 2010 and that is a key component to the Street's valuation. The next thing that is notable is Facebook's large profit margin. 27% of its sales are pulled into net income. That being said, you also have to respect McDonalds, which pulled 20% of its sales into the bottom line last year.

By no means is Facebook on the same scale as the other companies yet, but looking at its ongoing explosion of new users and revenue growth, combined with its high margin operation, it's looking like it can get there over time. Of course, its revenue growth rate is sure to decelerate from current speeds, but looking at Amazon's 40% growth rate for instance tells you that high growth is attainable over several years, even after revenue hits the tens of billions.

Certainly Facebook has a lot of legwork yet to do to truly reach expectations, but given its initial income figures, I believe it can truly establish itself alongside the likes of McDonalds in size and scale in 5 to 10 years. I wish them luck.