No Deal on Greece at Eurogroup; Amazon and Microsoft Lead Nasdaq to Fresh All-Time Highs

Economic Data

- (TR) Turkey Apr Real Sector Confidence SA: 102.7 v 100.9 prior; Real Sector Confidence NSA (unadj): 107.9 v 103.5 prior
- (TR) Turkey Apr Capacity Utilization: 74.1% v 73.6%e
- (IN) India Weekly Forex Reserves w/e Apr 17th: $343.2B v $340.4B prior
- (CL) Chile Mar PPI M/M: +2.1% v -1.1% prior
- (US) Mar Durable Goods Orders: 4.0% v 0.6%e; Durables Ex Transportation: -0.2% v +0.3%e; Capital Goods Orders (Non-defense/ex-aircraft): -0.5% v +0.3%e; Capital Goods Shipments (Non-defense/ex-aircraft): -0.4% v +0.3%e; Durables Ex-Defense: +2.6% v -1.0% prior
- (BE) Belgium Apr Business Confidence: -6.2 v -5.7e
- (MX) Mexico Feb Retail Sales M/M: 0.5% v 0.0%e; Y/Y: 5.6% v 4.5%e
- (BR) Brazil Mar Total Outstanding Loans (BRL): 3.06T v 3.026T prior; M/M: 1.2% v 0.5% prior; Personal Loan Default Rate: 5.2% v 5.4%e

Yesterday the Nasdaq closed at 5,056, its first close above its previous record high since March 2000, while the S&P 500 briefly topped its prior record high of 2119 only to close a few points lower. Today the S&P500 is lower struggling to top the record high while the Nasdaq has been propelled higher by big gains in Microsoft and Amazon. As of writing, the DJIA is flat, the S&P500 is up 0.15% and the Nasdaq is up 0.73%.

The March advance durable goods report was mixed but somewhat weaker than expected. The headline component rose 4.0%, widely beating expectations, but this was mostly due to an unexpected increase in the volatile civilian aircraft category, as well as some larger-than-expected increases in the defense and motor vehicle sectors. Excluding transportation, orders were quite weak.

Shares of tech giants Microsoft and Amazon are tearing higher after disclosing very good quarterly results last night, with AMZN up nearly 16% and MSFT up 7%. Microsoft's results showed CEO Nadella's turnaround well under way, with mobile hardware and cloud services revenue up sharply even as legacy licensing and PC revenue continued to decline. Amazon's quarterly revenue rose 12% and its quarterly loss was slightly smaller than expected. Investors were happy to see the firm break out AWS metrics for the first time: AWS had revenue of $1.5 billion in the quarter, with a run rate of $5 billion a year and profits of $265 million.

Comcast has officially abandoned its deal to acquire Time Warner Cable. The announcement does not come as much of a surprise, as the consensus emerged that after the FCC's net neutrality gambit the deal was next to impossible. The FCC was gearing up for hearings on the merger and press reports out this week suggested that DOJ lawyers were close to a decision to recommend blocking the merger. There is no breakup fee for either firm for walking away from the deal. Charter Communications (which is controlled by Liberty Media Corp) is widely understood to be interested in making a bid for Time Warner now that Comcast is out of the way.

Looking Ahead

- Potential rating agency commentary on European sovereigns: Fitch on Cyprus, Cyprus, Italy and Spain; S&P on Norway; Moodys on Romania
- 13:00 (US) Weekly Baker Hughes Rig Count
- 15:00 (AR) Argentina Mar Industrial Production M/M: No est v -0.4% prior; Y/Y: -1.8%e v -2.2% prior
- 15:00 (AR) Argentina Feb Economic Activity Index (Monthly GDP) M/M: No est v -0.1% prior; Y/Y: 0.7%e v 0.0% prior
- 15:00 (CO) Colombia Central Bank Interest Rate Decision: Expected to leave Overnight Lending Rate unchanged at 4.50%