Here are 4 tips for today's trading. This will help you decide where you should invest and what to look for:
1. Market overview
1. Market overview
It looks like we could have a positive start to the week.
U.S. stock futures are holding steady and the U.S. dollar is rising a tad versus most global currencies.
International stock markets are climbing, after starting the day in negative territory.
Crude oil futures have slipped to trade around $36.50 per barrel. Oil prices dropped sharply at the start of the year and hit a low around $26 per barrel, but have since rebounded.
2. Stocks to watch
2. Stocks to watch
Alaska Air, Tesla: Alaska Air Group (ALK) appears set to pay more than $2 billion to acquire Virgin America (VA), outbidding JetBlue (JBLU) for the carrier.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the deal could be announced Monday.
Tesla (TSLA) continues to be in the spotlight Monday after the company unveiled its highly anticipated Model 3 car last week. Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted on Sunday that the company had received 276,000 orders for the new car. If all those orders go through, that's worth roughly $11 billion to the company. However, production is only expected to begin in late 2017.
3. European and U.K. data clash
3. European and U.K. data clash
The number of unemployed people in Spain fell for the first time in three months in March, easing concerns over the health of the euro zone’s fourth largest economy and surprising consensus expectations for an increase.
In the wider Eurozone, the unemployment rate for February fell to its lowest level since August 2011.
On the downside, activity in the U.K. construction sector did positively surprise by remaining stable in March.
However, February’s level was a 10-month low and David Noble, Group Chief Executive Officer at the Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply warned that the sector was “awash with caution and hesitancy not seen since the pre-election lull of 2015.”
4. Economics and market recap
4. Economics and market recap
After Cleveland Federal Reserve president Loretta Mester said that the Fed should still raise interest rates gradually this year given the economy's resilience, traders will also watch for possible hints on U.S. central bank policy from two Fed speakers although neither is scheduled to speak on monetary policy.
Boston Fed president Eric Rosengren will give a presentation on cybersecurity and financial stability at 13:30GMT, or 9:30AM GMT. Minneapolis Fed chief Neel Kashkari is scheduled to give a press briefing following a conference on too-big-to-fail at 21:15GMT, or 17:15ET.
On a light calendar day stateside, investors will focus on the U.S. factory orders for February at 14:00GMT, or 10:00AM ET.
U.S. stock market indexes all made big gains last week.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 1.6%, the S&P 500 climbed 1.8% and the Nasdaq surged 3%.
