• Obama will speak at 1:20pmET today; will address the W VA mine explosion and Justice Stevens’ retirement, among other items.
• China –There could be some news out of China this weekend (per the NYT, China may announce a yuan revaluation as soon as Fri night; we will be getting China trade balance and import/export #s Fri night/Sat morning; China is expected to post a trade deficit this weekend for the first time in a while).
• Greece – activation of IMF-EU rescue this weekend? Reuters reported that a deal has been reached on the specific terms of a rescue but its not clear if Athens has requested the plan to be activated. In terms of the parameters of IMF debt, for loans up to three years, Greece will be charged the SDR rate plus 300 bps plus 50 bps service charge (per Reuters).
Corporate Calendar for the week of Mon Apr 12 – earnings season for Q1 will kick off w/AA coming Mon after the close. PKX (S Korean steel company) will hit overnight on Mon w/a call on Tues morning. There will be a bunch of tech results. For the semis, watch for INTC and LLTC on Tues, ASML on Wed, and AMD, FCS on Thurs. In the internets, GOOG kicks things off Thurs night. JPM is the first financial earnings of the season (Wed morning) and will be followed by PBCT (Thurs night) and BAC, FHN (Fri morning). GE reports Fri morning also.