Pre-market futures this morning are flattish following better-than-expected economic reports and Q1 earnings in the finance sector. Don’t look now, but we’re rallying for the week: the Dow is +64 points at this hour, the S&P 500 is +5 points and the Nasdaq, which has been running hot this week, is giving back -8 points currently. (The Nasdaq has been up 10 straight trading sessions — the best since 2021.) The small-cap Russell 2000 is -1 point.
Import Prices Lower for March, Exports Higher
Import Prices for March came out this morning, as investors had been bracing for impact of energy prices based on the seven-week (so far) war in Iran, which has clamped off the Strait of Hormuz and its 20% of global oil supply. But it didn’t happen: +0.8% on headline is 160 basis points (bps) lower than the +2.4% anticipated, and down from the downwardly revised +0.9% for February. For the year, Imports reached +2.1%, less than half the +4.4% expected.
Subtracting volatile fuel prices, Imports came in at a mere +0.2%. This is well off the +1.1% analysts had been expecting. It may stand to reason that higher oil prices — which did show up in yesterday’s PPI, which reported a “4-handle” for the first time in three years — will show up in April Import Prices, but we won’t get ahead of ourselves here.
Export Prices were higher, comparably, at +1.6% month over month, but still down 30 bps from the prior month’s print. Year over year, we see a figure that comes closer to where economists had been expecting most of the numbers to have reached: +5.6%. This is the strongest level since November of 2022. Of course, we always like to see Export Prices higher than Imports, but this condition appears to be temporary from this vista.
Empire State Manufacturing Swings to Positive
The April read on Empire State Manufacturing this morning also surprised to the upside: +11, from the -0.5 analysts had been projecting. It’s the third positive print on manufacturing in New York State in the past four months, following last month’s unrevised -0.2. We’re seeing modest strength in Empire State numbers over the past year, in fact, after three years of mostly negative prints.
Q1 Earnings at a Glance: BAC, MS, PGR
Bank of America BAC reported Q1 earnings results ahead of today’s opening bell, beating estimates by +11% to $1.11 per share for the quarter. Revenues of $30.27 billion was also higher than estimates, by +1.09%. Shares are up +2.3% in pre-market trading currently, getting closer to break-even year to date.
Elsewhere, we see Morgan Stanley MS up +3% in pre-market trading on its Q1 earnings beat, demonstrating strength in its equities trading revenue, which was +25% year over year. Progressive PGR shares are flat following a mixed Q1 report, beating by 3 cents per share to $4.80 on earnings, but $22.19 billion in revenues missed the $22.59 billion estimate.
What to Expect After the Open
While we always keep one eye on the latest updates for the Strait of Hormuz and the Iran war, we also get a new Homebuilders Confidence survey after today’s opening bell. Analysts expect a 37 for April, where we’d been for three out of the past six months. Homebuilder confidence is definitely up from where we saw results last summer, which were down around 32.
Also later today we’ll see the third Fed Beige Book of 2026 so far, which tracks the economic conditions in each of its 12 districts. Results last time around were mixed: seven of the regions reported slight-to-moderate growth, while four were flat-to-down. We look for the latest Beige Book at 2pm ET today.
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