OREANDA-NEWS. April 12, 2012. The US indices mostly rose on Wednesday. S&P 500 Index added 0.74% while Russell was up by 1.59% with Financials (+1.59%), Consumer Discretionary (+1.34%) as the laggards. Put/call ratio was at 1.6 and 90-110% skew was at 10.93. Advance/Decline ratio was at 422/76.

Alcoa positive earnings report, dovish statements from the Fed members drove stocks higher.

Import prices widely met consensus estimates, rising by 3.4% annually.

Asian indices were mixed on Thursday. Japanese Nikkei was up by 0.67%. Hang Seng added 0.6%. S&P/ASX 200 inched up by 0.81%, Kospi was down by 0.39%. Chinese indices rose on average by 0.7-1.8% on rate decrease hopes.

The European indices are slightly up at the start of the session, with Financials as the leaders.

Industrial Production in the EU for February, US PPI and the jobless claims data will be in focus today along with Dudley, Raskin, Plosser, Cumming as the speakers.

Google and Fastenal are to present 4Q earnings reports.