Today's Key News - The Horse is Farting

U.S. equities have opened mixed, but the Dow, S&P 500 and NASDAQ indices all show modest gains. Earnings highlight the news this morning, with positive reports from AT&T (T), Lockheed Martin (LMT) and Texas Instruments (TXN). However, key housing and consumer confidence data is on tap for 10:00 a.m.

Asia:
Hang Seng Index +0.08%; Shanghai/Shenzhen CSI 300 +0.4%; NIKKEI 225 -0.02%; S&P/ASX 200 -0.34%; Taiwan TAIEX +0.43%; BSE SENSEX 30 +1.5%; KRX 100 +0.56%; Ho Chi Minh -2.75%

U.K., Europe & Middle East:
DJ STOXX 50 Index -0.49%; FTSE 100 -0.51%; CAC 40 -0.22%; DAX -0.61%; Russian RTS Index -0.26%; ASE General -0.48%; Tel Aviv 25 NA; Tadawul All Share +0.42%; DFM General-0.36%

Our value-added take on today's key news:

• *** April consumer confidence will be reported at 10:00 a.m., and despite recently strong retail sales, higher gasoline prices and a deteriorated housing sector should be expected to drive confidence down, in our view. Bloomberg shows a consensus expectation for a decrease in April confidence to 105 from 107.2 in March.
• *** March existing home sales are widely expected to have declined to 6.4 million, from 6.69 million in February. And the rug of comfort underneath the dwindling number of housing bulls still left, is pulled away...
• *** Whenever Alan Greenspan has a microphone and an audience of reporters, you should know about it. Alan has been invited to give the keynote today at the "Boomertirement" industry extravaganza in New York.
• *** The Bank of Canada will provide its decision on interest rates.
• *** Earnings season gets heavy today. Check out Yahoo!'s earnings calendar here. Lockheed Martin (LMT) beat estimates and raised guidance; Texas Instruments (TXN) exceeded estimates and raised guidance; AT&T (T) exceeded forecasts; BP's (BP) profit fell 17%.
• *** Toyota's Q1 sales exceeded those of General Motors (GM) and though GM cries that it takes a full year's results to mark the victory, Wall Street Greek says that victory is inevitable. Yesterday, GM executives once again highlighted weakening industry trends impacting 2007, including the crunch of tightening credit standards. Seems like Toyota (TM) is navigating those same waters just fine though; a lot of heads may still roll at GM and Ford (F).
• *** Investors in subprime mortgages stand to lose a bundle, above their already counted losses. This article from Bloomberg tells you where the risks lie steepest. We anticipate losses could put some focused, leveraged investors' solvency into question, and yes, we are talking about hedge funds.
• *** Ahmadinejad reaches out once again to Bush for a one-on-one meeting. The writing is on the wall. You can almost hear the words coming out of his mouth now, for when a nuclear weapon explodes on American soil and is traced back to Iran. "I tried." A favorite proverb of my father's seems to apply nicely here, "o' aloghos klanee - the horse is farting." In other words, nobody is listening to Ahmadinejad's banter.

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