US retail sales beats forecasts; S&P500 to open higher

Summary:

• US retail sales M/M: +1.6% vs +1.0% exp

• DowDuPont falls on earnings; Pinterest set for IPO

• S&P500 back at the 2900 level

There’s two main economic releases this afternoon from the US to watch out for, and the first has come in better than expected in a pleasing development as far as consumer spending is concerned. Retail sales M/M rose by 1.6% vs 1.0% expected, bouncing back from a -0.2% print last time out. The core reading was also good, showing an increase of 1.2% vs 0.7% exp and a prior reading of -0.2% - revised higher from -0.4%. While the monthly reading marks a decent beat, the longer term view is not quite so positive, with year-on-year figures remaining fairly low compared to recent years.  Attention now turns to the flash PMI releases due out at 2:45PM (BST).

While retail sales bounced back in March, the pace of growth remains tepid and lower than much of the past couple of years. Source: XTB Macrobond

Earnings season is now in full swing and one company making headlines after its latest update is DowDuPont with the firm issuing a profit warning after its agricultural business was hit by severe weather which hurt seed deliveries. "Less than 50% of planned seed deliveries in the last 5 days of the quarter occurred, resulting in a greater than anticipated impact on first quarter performance," the company said in a statement. "In this peak delivery period, under normal circumstances and based on history, the division would expect one day of U.S. seed sales to generate about $25 to $35 million in operating EBITDA." Shares are called to open lower by a little over 1% at the bottom of the hour.

DowDuPont is called to open lower after the profit warning with the stock still beneath the significant hurdles of the 200 SMA and prior resistance around 40.65. Source: xStation

Attention in New York this afternoon will be on Pinterest with the digital scapbooking site due for an initial public offering with the company’s valuation set at $12.7B. Yesterday was a bit of a negative one for the broader US markets with the S&P500 fading after a bright start to end lower. An inverted hammer of sorts can be seen on the D1 candle with recent highs of 2923 possible resistance - and less than 1% from the all-time high set back in September 2018. 2890 is the first level of potential support at the daily low but a drop below there would open up the chance of a move to 2865.

The US500 ran into some resistance around 2922 and ended the day lower. Today’s low of 2890 could be seen as possible support. Source: xStation