Chicago, IL 3/16/12 (StreetBeat) -- Stocks were mixed in Asian trade. Shanghai was up 1.3%, but Australia and the Nikkei were essentially unchanged on the session and the Hang Seng fell a slight fraction. European indexes are mostly higher this morning with the Dax up a half percent and Footsie up about 0.4%. US stock futures are up a slight fraction as I write.*Richmond Fed’s Lacker, a dissenter at the recent FOMC meeting, tells why on his bank’s website. He says that exceptionally low rates won’t be needed through late 2014 and that the Fed will, maybe in 2013, need to hike rates to prevent inflation pressures.
*The February reading of the Consumer Price Index is due out at 7:30am CST. Headline CPI is expected to be up 0.4% on a month on month basis and the estimate for the Core CPI is +0.2% on the month. The annualized CPI rates are forecast to be +2.9% and +2.,2%, respectively. The February readings of Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization are due to be released at 8:15am CST. Production is expected to be +0.4% on a monthly basis and Utilization is forecast to be 78.8%, up three tenths from the month before. The preliminary March reading of consumer sentiment is due out at 8:55am CST; it is expected to be 76.0, it was 75.3 in February.
*The Fed is scheduled to sell Treasuries today that are due to mature between 2/15/14 and 5/31/14; the results of the operation will be announced just after 10:00am CST.
*Chicago Fed boss Evans is set to speak at 2:00pm CST about monetary policy in Frankfurt.
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