Weekend:
• Schedule for Week of Apr 15, 2018
Monday:
• At 8:30 AM ET, Retail sales for March will be released. The consensus is for a 0.4% increase in retail sales.
• Also at 8:30 AM, The New York Fed Empire State manufacturing survey for April. The consensus is for a reading of 18.2, down from 22.5.
• At 10:00 AM, The April NAHB homebuilder survey. The consensus is for a reading of 70, unchanged from 70 in March. Any number above 50 indicates that more builders view sales conditions as good than poor.
• Also at 10:00 AM, Manufacturing and Trade: Inventories and Sales (business inventories) report for February. The consensus is for a 0.6% increase in inventories.
From CNBC: Pre-Market Data and Bloomberg futures: S&P 500 are up 18, and DOW futures are up 185 (fair value).
Oil prices were up over the last week with WTI futures at $67.14 per barrel and Brent at $72.22 per barrel. A year ago, WTI was at $53, and Brent was at $55 – so oil prices are up about 30% year-over-year.
Here is a graph from Gasbuddy.com for nationwide gasoline prices. Nationally prices are at $2.71 per gallon. A year ago prices were at $2.40 per gallon – so gasoline prices are up 31 cents per gallon year-over-year.