“We want to perceive ourselves as winners, but successful traders are always focusing on their losses” – Peter Borish”

1. ECB Pledges to Boost Bond Buying — ECB Executive Board member Benoit Coeure declared that the central bank would increase purchases under its QE program (from €60B in May and June) before an expected period of low liquidity in the summer.
2. Apple Shelved Plans to Launch a TV Set — WSJ, Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) “quietly shelved plans” to launch a TV set more than a year ago, sources told WSJ. Apple reportedly planned to make a 4K (Ultra HD) set, and considered including sensor-equipped cameras for making video calls. But it ultimately decided the TV’s features wouldn’t be “compelling enough” to enter a highly competitive market.
3. A June Rate Hike is ‘unlikely,’ Fed Minutes Suggest — according to the summary of the Fed discussions on April 29-30, only a “few” Fed officials thought that the economy would show enough strength to justify a Chances of a rate hike in June. “Most Fed policy members, however, thought it unlikely that the data available in June would provide sufficient confirmation that the conditions for raising the target range for the federal funds rate had been satisfied, although they generally did not rule out this possibility,” the minutes show.
4. Five Banks Agree to Plead Guilty to Currency Rigging — JP Morgan (JPM), CitiGroup (C), Barclay (BCS), and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) agreed to plead guilty to felony antitrust violations for conspiring to manipulate the price of dollars and euros from 2007 to 2013. UBS (UBS) agreed to plead guilty to rigging the Libor rate.
5. Greece Says That It Will Default On June 5th, And Moody’s Warns Of A ‘Deposit Freeze’ — the Greek government says that their lenders agree to give them more money by June 5th, or Greece will default on a 300 million euro loan payment to the IMF. Talks between Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, President Francois Hollande and Chancellor Angela Merkel broke up without agreements. “open issues” such as pensions, sales-tax rates and targets for a primary budget surplus remained.

The week ahead — Economic data from Econoday.com:

“The stock market is a no-called-strike game. You don’t have to swing at everything — you can wait for your pitch” — Buffett

1. Greece Makes Latest IMF Loan Repayment — Greece completed a 750-million-euro ($836.7 million) loan repayment to the International Monetary Fund last week. The Bank of Greece official said the money was paid from an emergency account held by the central bank after two meetings last week between Governor Yannis Stournaras, Deputy Prime Minister Giannis Dragasakis and Deputy Foreign Minister Euclid Tsakalotos, who manages Greece’s talks with international creditors over its bailout. Euro group chief cited “important progress” but said that “more time” is needed.
2. China Surprised Market with Rate Cut — the China ‘s Central Bank trimmed interest rates for the 3rd time in 6-months amid signs of slower growth. Rate sensitive sectors like autos and housing rallied.
3. Retail Sales Flat in April — Sales at U.S. retailers were flat in April after spike in March. Sales minus autos, which accounts for one-fifth of all retail purchases, rose a scant 0.1%. That’s well below the 0.4% Wall Street forecast. And sales minus both autos and gasoline edged up 0.2%.
4. Eurozone GDP Picks Up, Boosted By (Germany, France, Italy and Spain) — the eurozone economy expanded by 0.4% in the first quarter, marking a pickup from the 0.3% growth recorded in the final quarter of last year. since the first half of 2010, all four of the eurozone’s largest economies (Germany, France, Italy and Spain) recorded growth and the currency area grew more rapidly than both the U.S. and U.K.
5. Federal Reserve Rate Hike Choice is September or December According Former Member — according to the former Fed Vice Chairman Donald Kohn says a June rate hike is off the table following weaker-than-expected April retail sales data. Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen has said the central bank will start considering rate hikes at the June meeting. Interest rates have been near zero since the end of 2008.
6. Bullish Sentiment Drops To Lowest Level In More Than 2 Years — courtesy of BIG, bullish sentiment dropped from 27.1% down to 26.7%. While the size of the drop in bullish sentiment was small, this week marks the tenth straight week that bullish sentiment has been below the bull market average and also the tenth decline in bullish sentiment over the last twelve weeks.

The week ahead — Economic data from Econoday.com:

“If I had to characterize the market in 2015, I would call it a ‘trading sardine market’ not an ‘eating sardine market’.” — Doug Kass

1. S&P500 in Rising Wedge Chart Formation — the current chart shows the S&P500 in an in-decisive pattern. Breakout occurs when the S&P500 breaks decisive upside above 2120 or breaks to downside below 2085. StockCharts defined rising wedge chart formation as
“The rising wedge can be one of the most difficult chart patterns to accurately recognize and trade. While it is a consolidation formation, the loss of upside momentum on each successive high gives the pattern its bearish bias. However, the series of higher highs, and higher lows, keeps the trend inherently bullish. The final break of support indicates that the forces of supply have finally won out and lower prices are likely. There are no measuring techniques to estimate the decline – other aspects of technical analysis should be employed to forecast price targets.”

2. U.S. Factory Orders Climb 2.1% in March — orders for durable goods — products meant to last at least three years — jumped 4.4% in March, the Commerce Department reported.
3. 10-Year Yields Spiking Globally — a worldwide sell-off in government bonds deepened last week, buoyed by rising German Bund yields that recently hit record highs and narrowed their gap with U.S. Treasuries. Benchmark 10-year Bunds now trade at 0.53%, having hit a record low of 0.05% last month, when many expected them to turn negative.
4. The Third Year of the Presidential Cycle — historically, the third year of the Presidential Cycle been the equity market’s best year in terms of performance, but with a gain of less than 3% YTD, 2015 has gotten off to a slow start.
Below is the chart which lists the S&P 500′s YTD returns in the third year of each Presidential Election Cycle since 1931.

The week ahead — Economic data from Econoday.com: