Pre-Market

The overnight Quote of the Day comes to us from Spain's corruption embattled PM, Rajoy, "There are no green shoots, there is no spring".

Another day, another several EU countries posting investor sentiment surveys that are very optimistic like those here in the US, yesterday was the German ZEW, today the French (mmmm...hmmm...) , the Swiss and get this, the one EZ country that has posted 6 quarters of economic decline or 3 consecutive recessions, Italy with an investor confidence beat.

Also adding to the daily tally, more countries promising to do whatever is needed to protect (debase) their currencies, today was New Zealand's moment, joining a long list from the EU, to the Pacific to south America, the currency wars are on, the trade wars are starting and since everyone is doing some sort of QE/debasement, it's a pretty level playing field which means the US dollar is the go to asset during currency wars, perhaps that is why it has been trending up lately.

Beyond that, Office Depot is to buy Office Max for $13.50 a share.

It's no surprise, but 9 months ago it would have been, FoxConn freezes hiring across China on slowing demand for IPhones, good thing AAPL was only a day trade yesterday.

As for futures, they tried to move higher overnight, ES did by about a very modest 2 points to sit right now exactly where it left off yesterday at 4 pm, NASDAQ futures moved up about 5.5 points to settle again, exactly where we left off yesterday.