1. Latest April Data Show Home-Price Growth Has Turned — MarketWatch, home prices rose in April as the spring selling season got underway, even as annual growth skidded, dropping to the slowest year-over-year pace in 13 months, according to the latest data .

2. E-cigarettes Could Stub Out Tobacco Bonds Sooner Than Thought — Reuters, the rapid growth of electronic cigarette sales poses a rising but under-appreciated risk to holders of as much as $96 billion of bonds tied to payments tobacco companies make to U.S. states from a sweeping legal settlement in 1998. Tobacco bonds were already forecast by many analysts to begin defaulting within the next 10 years as Americans have given up smoking at a faster rate than estimated when most of the bonds were sold in the previous decade.
3. U.S. Growth Contracted 2.9% in First Quarter — MarketWatch, according to the newly revised government figures, the U.S. economy contracted by 2.9% in the first quarter, marking the biggest drop since early 2009 when the Great Recession was winding down. In the first quarter, Americans spent less than originally assumed, mainly on health care. A bigger drop in U.S. exports, higher imports and a smaller buildup in inventories also contributed to the steeper decline in gross domestic product.
4. U.S. Set To Allow First Shipments of Unrefined Oil Overseas — Federal officials have told two energy companies that they can legally export a kind of ultra-light oil that has become plentiful as drillers tap shale formations across the U.S. With relatively minimal processing, oil shipments could begin as early as August. The two companies are Pioneer Natural Resources Co. (PXD) of Irving, Texas, and Enterprise Products Partners LP (EPD) of Houston .
5. NY Attorney General Eric Schneiderman Announced a Civil Lawsuit Condemning Barclays Plc (BCS) Dark Pool Unit — the allegations against Barclays (BCS) say that it dramatically increased the market share of its dark pool through a series of false statements to clients and investors about how, and for whose benefit, Barclays operates its dark pool. Dark pools are private trading platforms that allow for block trades and are designed to allow firms to make anonymous trades without disclosing their hands.
6. Argentina Deposited $832M Towards Its Restructured Debt — despite a New York federal court order prohibiting Argentina from paying its restructured debt before its holdout investors, Argentina deposited $832M toward restructured debt ahead of 6/30/2014 deadline. The ruling prevents third party agents from distributing the funds unless the holdout investors are included on the payments.
7. Latest AAII Bullish Sentiment — courtesy of BIG, According to the weekly survey from the American Association of Individual Investors (AAII), bullish sentiment ticked up from 35.17% to 37.22% for an increase of just over two percentage points. As bullish sentiment picked up, bearish sentiment saw a modest decline falling from 24.13% down to 21.09%. Even after this week’s increase, though, AAII’s bullish sentiment reading remains below its bull market average of 38.4%.

The week ahead — Economic data from Econoday.com: