3 Things to Consider When Trading Today

Austin, TX 4/19/12 (StreetBeat) -- Stocks were mixed in Asian trade. The Hang Seng added one percent and Australia was up a third of a percent, but the Nikkei fell 0.8% and Shanghai was down a slight fraction. European indexes are mostly higher this morning, with the Footsie better by about two thirds of a percent, while the Dax is up a half percent or so. US stock futures are up about a half percent as I write.

*The March reading of Japan’s Merchandise Trade Balance slipped to a bigger deficit, a seasonally adjusted –Y621 billion. Exports were up 5.9% from March a year ago, but Imports were up 10.5% year on year.

*Spain and France were able to sell all of the mid-term to long-term debt they had intended to in auctions earlier today. It is assumed that the banks in those countries put some of their LTRO money to work… for better or worse it’s hard to imagine that they had another choice but to support the sales.

*Various Dow Industrial members are among the companies that are out with their earnings reports this morning; Travelers, Bank of America, and DuPont all appear to have better than expected results…ex-items, ex-valuations, etc.

*The weekly report on Initial Jobless Claims is due out at 7:30am CDT, it is expected to be 370k. Three bits of data are due out at 9:00am CDT: the Philly Fed is expected to be 12.0, down a half point from the previous month; Existing Home Sales is forecast to up 0.7% from the month before to an annualized rate of 4.62 million units; and the estimate for Leading Economic Indicators is +0.2%.

*The weekly report on inventories of Natural Gas is due out at 9:30am CDT, it is expected to show an increase of 24 bcf.

*The Treasury will at 10:00am CDT announce the details for next week’s auctions of 2 Year, 5 Year and 7 Year Notes.

*The Fed is scheduled to buy Treasuries today that are due to mature between 8/15/22 and 2/15/31; the results of the operation will be announced just after 10:00am CDT.

*The Treasury plans to sell $16 billion 5 Year TIPS today; the auction results will be announced just after noon CDT.

*Be aware that IMF, World Bank and G20 meeting participants continue to seek out microphones in DC.

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