3 Things to Know Before Trading

Tallahassee, FL 5/1/12 (StreetBeat) -- Most of Europe and much of Asia is closed for the May Day holiday. The Nikkei was open, though maybe some wish they had taken the day off; the index was down one and three quarters percent. Australia, however, was up three quarters of a percent. The Footsie is open, it is quietly up about 0.4%. US stock futures are flat as I write.

*The Reserve Bank of Australia took the market by surprise by cutting their key cash rate target by 0.50% at their policy meeting, bringing the rate down to 3.75%; a quarter point rate cut was expected. They say that the larger than forecast rate cut was necessary to deliver appropriate borrowing rates and that inflation will be lower than earlier expected in the next year or two.

*The April reading of China’s manufacturing sector Purchasing Managers Index was up two tenths on the month to 53.3, a few tenths less than forecast, but it is the highest result since March 2011.

*The April reading of the UK’s manufacturing sector PMI fell about a point and a half to 50.5, just a fractional decline was expected.

*The weekly report on chain store sales from ICSC showed a decline of 0.3% on a week on week basis for the week ended April 12. The Johnson Redbook report on the same thing is due out at 7:55am CDT.

*The April reading of the ISM Manufacturing Index is due out at 9:00am CDT. The headline ISM is expected to be down a fraction from the month before to 53.0 and the Price Paid component is forecast to be 59.0, down two points from March. Also set to be released at 9:00am is the March reading of Construction Spending, which is expected to be +0.5% on the month.

*The Fed is scheduled to buy Treasuries today that are due to mature between 5/15/20 and 2/15/22; the results of the operation will be announced just after 10:00am CDT.

*The automakers are set to announce their April vehicle sale results today; it is expected that the total vehicle sales will be fractionally better than the month before at an annualized sales rate of 14.40 million units.

*The is a smattering of Fed speak on the calendar today, including: Minneapolis Fed boss Kocherlakota is scheduled to speak at 8:30am CDT; San Francisco Fed’s Williams will talk at 10:00am CDT; Chicago’s Evans and Atlanta’s Lockhart will share the stage to talk about monetary policy in Beverly Hills at the Milken conference at 11:30am CDT; and Philly Fed boss Plosser will discuss the economy at 2:00pm CDT in San Diego.

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