Equities worldwide are up big.
The march up was led by Japan where a holiday on Wednesday meant that the equity markets
had two days of gains to catch
up to. Europe also shrug off bad news about high unemployment (Europe’s Jobless Rate Jumps to the Highest Since 2005 (Update1) – Bloomberg.com) and is higher, giving the US futures another leg up.
Today morning’s economic news barely budged the market.
Jobless claims fell though continuing
claims went up to a new record.
U.S. Initial Jobless Claims Fell to 631,000 Last Week (Update1) – Bloomberg.com. Personal income and spending fell, Personal Income, Spending Fell in March – WSJ.com confirming my suspicion that the rosy interpretation of the consumer spending component of yesterday’ s GDP report were
suspect.
There were no major surprises in the Earnings picture with a healthy distribution of beats, with a few minor misses; similarly guidance was nothing to talk about.
Most of the better performance came from significant cost cutting, with P&G performing better by raising prices.
However, wh at m
atters is price action and the end of month window dressing is bound to give
the markets a nice leg up today, at least near the opening.