Chase Utlies Phillies Hitting Home Run
What correction?
First the scoreboard:

Dow: 12,986.3, +181.4+1.4%

S&P 500: 1,387.7, +18.1, +1.4%

NASDAQ: 3,055.4,
+39.2, +1.3%

And now the top stories:
  • Italy had an unpleasant bond auction this morning.  But that didn't stop market from rallying.  Maybe everybody read Deutsche Bank's note today that a slowdown in Europe or China would have little impact on the U.S. economy, which is largely driven by the domestic demand of the American consumer. But for people who do fear the impact of a European slowdown, Well's Fargo's Gina Martin Adams warns that the materials sector is the most exposed.  

  • We got a big dump of economic data out today.  The March producer price index came in flat.  Economists were looking for a 0.3 percent increase.  However, core inflation, which excludes food and energy jumped 0.3 percent, which was hotter than the 0.2 percent expected.  The big change: energy prices dropped in March.

  • Initial umemployment claims unexpectedly jumped 13k to 380k.  Economists were only looking for 355k.  What's worse, last week's number was revised to 367k, up 10k from the preliminary reading.  This is not good for stocks, because initial claims has been one of the best coincident indicators of the markets.

  • Recently, with stocks off of their highs, everyone's been calling for a correction (i.e. a sell-off of around 5 percent).  Professor Robert Shiller was on CNBC this morning questioning the sustainability of this multi-year rally.  Laszlo Birinyi pointed out that stocks typically experience four corrections per year.  But, he also added that when stocks don't correct, they average a whopping average annual return of 27 percent.

  • Everyone's attributing today's monster rally to dovish comments from the Federal Reserve's Janet Yellen and William Dudley.  The prospect of more quantitative easing has the liquidistas pouring money into the markets.